


Phobia

by Katsitting (Nekositting)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Prolapse, Biting, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Ero Guro, Explicit Sexual Content, Extremely Dubious Consent, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hemipenis!Voldemort, Horcruxes, Irony, M/M, Memory Loss, Metaphors, Mindfuck, Minor Character Death, Multiple Orgasms, Nipple Play, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Overstimulation, Painplay, Porn With Plot, Praise Kink, Psychological Torture, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sentimental, Snakefaced!Voldemort, Stockholm Syndrome, Surprise Ending, This messes heavily with consent, Torture, Under the Influence of Horcruxes, Underage because Harry is seventeen, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-02-04 02:00:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 47,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12760815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekositting/pseuds/Katsitting
Summary: “I shall show you just how far you’ve fallen,” Voldemort whispered, breaking the thick silence that had settled between them.Harry wanted to laugh, to bare his teeth at the man like the wounded lion that he was.There was nothing for him to do but snark and snarl at the man that had hidden him away from all prying eyes...save for those he trusted most. His legs were useless, his body weak.“I’d like to see you try,” Harry goaded.





	1. Melt

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prompt fill. I was asked by an anonymous user to write Harrymort + prolapsing. I never thought I would get a request of this sort. I also never thought that I would even consider filling it. I will warn you now that this is not for the faint of heart, and that you should be mindful of all the warnings I will be tagging for this work. The fact that this story is inordinately long is also a surprise for me, so bear with me on this.
> 
> If you have read IBTCIS, then you know I mean it when I include certain things on the list of tags. This will not start off insane, but will gradually get there. I will drop warnings at the top of the chapter where shit hits the fan. I will be posting a chapter every two weeks.
> 
> Thank you Nanimok for betaing my story.

_White._

Harry closed his eyes quickly, blinded by the flash of light that suddenly exploded within the small, dark room. He couldn’t help the way he jolted from the source, how his mouth parted before releasing a soft hiss when his eyes watered from the intensity.

It wasn’t often that he had visitors. Merlin knows how long it’d been since the last time one of the Dark Lord’s bootlickers had forced upon him their unpleasant company. They rarely ever bothered to open his cell, choosing instead to have the house elves deliver his meals and magic away his waste when he was forced to use the bucket in the furthest corner in the room.

It was a small mercy he was all too grateful for. He doubted he could handle the smell of his own shite on top of the stench of death that clung to the stone walls at either side of him.

Harry blinked away the spots dancing along his vision before casting the entrance a wary glance, expecting the worst out of the situation. He couldn’t quite make out just who it was standing in front of the light. He had lost his glasses long ago, abandoned somewhere in the chaos when he had tried to escape once. It had possibly been the angriest he had ever seen the Dark Lord, and the results had certainly not been pretty.

Harry had lost more than his glasses in the scuffle, that was for certain.

His ability to walk, for one.

The snake-faced bastard had broken his legs, and they had never quite recovered since then, but Harry doubted they ever would. He had no access to a healer to fix them, and not even his piss poor attempts to make a splint out of the broken dinner table in the cell could really resolve much of that issue.

It was just another way for the Dark Lord to clip his wings, to make it near impossible to escape now that he could not run. It was a good thing, at least, that the pain had long since passed, his legs rendered useless.

Though, that was not much a good thing, considering the circumstances.

_“Harry.”_

Harry froze, all the air in his lungs escaping his chest.

He had not expected for  _him_ to be the one to come. He never thought that he would face Voldemort in the flesh again—he had expected Bellatrix, hell, even  _Lucius_ —but he never thought  that he’d be seeing the true horrific image of this man after only seeing him for weeks in his head.

Absent in body, but always present like a buzzing fly in the back of his mind.

Harry had assumed that after his first and only attempt at escape months prior that Voldemort would never come into his cell again—with the exception of putting him out of his misery. It was what the monster had said before departing, his words somehow cutting through the haze of agony after his legs had been broken.

_Was Voldemort here to kill him then?_

Harry narrowed his eyes to try to clear some of the fuzziness in his vision. He knew that it would not make the man any clearer, would not magically render Voldemort’s face visible beneath the shadows of the entrance, but Harry had to try. Doing something was better than doing absolutely nothing at all. This was better than simply resigning himself to his shitty situation.

“C-come to finish me off then?”

Harry did not bother with the pleasantries, unfazed by the scorn thick in his voice. He twisted his lips into a wry smile, listening for the sound of Voldemort’s footsteps, for the slithering hiss of his robes sliding on the floor as he slipped further into the cell.

But the sound never came. Voldemort’s shadow lingered by the open doorway, undisturbed.

Harry watched, waiting for Voldemort to make a move. It would only be a matter of time before he did. Voldemort would not have come if he did not have a reason. What that reason could be anyone’s guess, but for the moment, Harry would wait.

His legs were broken, it wasn’t as though Harry had many options to begin with.

Harry shifted his body, deciding that he may as well get more comfortable if Voldemort preferred to do nothing for the moment. The stone wall at his back felt cold even through the thin, dirty shirt he wore. Still, Harry pushed against the floor with his hands to compensate for the uselessness of his legs, straightening his back to look more put together than he was.

Just because Harry was helpless did not mean that he had to look the part, after all.

“I have learned something that may interest you,” Voldemort said.

His flat tone, devoid of any emotion, echoed through the near empty cell as if the syllables had been uttered by a thousand men, the reverberations making Harry’s teeth vibrate with discomfort.

Harry ignored the strange sensation before he shifted once more and tilted his head questioningly at the Dark Lord. It was a subtle gesture, but Harry knew that Voldemort would see it.

It was rare for Voldemort to string more than a few words without a threat woven in the utterance. Rarer still, to be visited by the man without a curse being thrown in Harry’s direction. It piqued Harry’s interest in spite of himself. Because really, what could the man possibly want to tell him? Something that might interest him? Unless Voldemort planned to let him see a healer, Harry doubted anything the man said would be of much importance.

Harry wanted his legs back; he wanted to stand, to roam, to pace. He wanted some measly sense of control in this cramped dark cell that’s as stifling as a coffin. He couldn’t very much do that as crippled as he was.

But more than anything else, he wanted his freedom.

Harry was meant for the skies and clouds, the moment he touched a flying broom. He was not meant for this dark, dilapidated cell, divorced from a part that made him whole.

And that was impossible without functioning  _limbs_. It was probably why Voldemort had not bothered healing him after his last escape attempt in the first place. He couldn’t plan for escape without legs to carry him off. It made sense that Voldemort would deny him such a thing.

Harry’s last attempt had nearly gotten him killed.

But it had certainly been worth to see the Dark Lord pushed into a fit of rage. It was funny how the Dark Lord spent most of his life deceiving others, but Harry’s deception had resulted in a violent reaction—as if he never expected Harry to leave his side.

Hypocrite, really. Harry supposed that only the Dark Lord was permitted to deceive. Any such attempt from Harry’s end would simply be deemed as betrayal.

Harry nearly snorted from the absurdity of such a thing.

_Bloody ridiculous._

“Unless you plan to fix me or get me out of here, nothing you tell me will interest me one bit.” Harry said, his remark more scathing than he had intended it.

He had no energy for forced politeness; that ship had long since sailed. Playing the part of the cooperative captive would get him nowhere now.

Voldemort didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he almost smiled.

“Not even the fact that I have won the war?”

His breath nearly stopped with dread.

 _No_.

“Not even the fact that the light has lost and you are the only one standing on the losing side?” Voldemort inquired, and Harry swallowed, shocked to the core.

Had it really been so long that he missed the entire bloody  _war_? Harry could not believe him. No, he refused to believe him. The man had to be lying. Harry couldn’t have been trapped that long in this shithole. Until he failed to end a bloody war he was supposed to finish.

 _But what if you were?_  A sinister voice whispered in the back of Harry’s head.  _What if you have been here for months, almost a whole year rather than the days you had first assumed?_

Harry felt his insides churn. His throat seized up with dread. His fingers clenched into tight fists, blunt nails digging harshly into the skin, but Harry hardly paid the sting any mind when his world felt as though it had been tilted on its axis.

_No, it couldn’t have been that long. It just couldn’t be true._

“You’re lying,” Harry said after a pause, watching as Voldemort’s shadow wavered for a moment in the white light. It looked as though he were flickering in and out of existence, like the times the Dursley’s telly lost reception while in the middle of a horror picture show. It was a sinister flicker, one that made a cold sweat gather along the back of Harry’s neck.

“I have never lied to you, Harry,” Voldemort said, voice far too amused. It made Harry’s stomach churn, nausea creeping up his dry throat.

Harry tried to swallow it down to stop himself from choking.

“The war is over. The Light has fallen, and all that remains is you—”

“Shut up,” Harry choked out, eyes fierce as he glared in Voldemort’s direction. His shoulders shook with anger, his breaths coming too quickly as he tried to settle the panic pumping through his veins.

_It just wasn’t possible._

Harry could not have been trapped here for that long. He refused to just  _accept_  that. Sure, he had lost most feeling in his legs after rotting in that cell, but that did not mean that so much time could have elapsed in between.

...If the Light really had lost, if his friends really had been defeated, then why was Harry still alive? For what purpose could Voldemort keep him here? Harry was still the prophesied enemy. It simply wasn’t possible that Voldemort could have won when he still remained standing in the man’s way.

_Neither can live while the other survives._

Those were the words of the prophecy. The words that had echoed in the back of his mind for a solid year after Sirius had been killed during Fifth year.

“Such a pity, indeed,” Voldemort uttered. “That the world you have known, that the allies you have made are no more. Defiance still burns in your blood, the thirst for escape still flickering behind those eyes like a lit pyre. But there is nothing for you to return to, no one who will aid you in your plight.”

Then the darkened shadow grew larger, the edges melting into the blackened corners of Harry’s cell, to the smudges along Harry’s vision.

 _No, not larger,_  Harry amended quickly. The shadow was not growing larger.  _Voldemort was coming closer_ , Harry realized. Dread squeezed his heart like a vice, and he wondered faintly if his might even fail on him with how rapidly his heart beat.

It took everything for him to not shrink away from the looming presence in spite of his fear. But Harry refused to yield. He would not allow himself to cowed, even if he was wandless and completely powerless. Weak and so very helpless.

Harry heard the soft sound of slithering robes, of bare feet slapping against stone as Voldemort bridged the space between them. It’s a striking contrast from the darkness he’s used to, and it swallowed all thought and reason, easily dominating Harry’s small world.

Voldemort was a force that could not be contained, a presence that not even the stone walls at either side of them could halt.

Harry craned his head to keep a fixed look on the man, unafraid to meet the man’s oppressive gaze. He would not show weakness. He would not yield. He had thus far held onto his tenacity and will to fight. He would not let his fire be dampened now.

Harry would fight to the very end.

And then Voldemort stood before him, the darkness and Harry’s poor vision making it impossible to discern the monster’s features. Harry could make out the bright glow of red. Nothing just how the muddy color contrasted with the black of his cell, and the way the shadow cast by the light emanating from the cell door at Voldemort’s back swallowed him whole.

It made the situation more sinister, made the isolation heavier on Harry’s bones. But still, Harry paid little mind to the sheer size of the man or the thick taste of bitterness in the back of his throat when Voldemort’s magic began to undulate and writhe with the shadows.

Voldemort’s magic clung to him like a second skin. He could feel Voldemort like a presence that refused to leave, a parasite that fed on his hopes and dreams. Worse than a dementor, and significantly worse than the gut-wrenching horror he had felt when his soul had nearly been eaten away many years ago...

“I shall show you just how far you’ve fallen,” Voldemort whispered, breaking the thick silence that had settled between them.

Harry wanted to laugh, to bare his teeth at the man like the wounded lion that he was.There was nothing for him to do but snark and snarl at the man that had hidden him away from all prying eyes...save for those he trusted most. His legs were useless, his body weak.

“I’d like to see you try,” Harry goaded.

Voldemort’s magic froze before exploding outwardly as if angered. Harry shuddered when the thick tendrils pressed against the skin of his cheeks.The weight settled on his shoulders and pressed tightly against his ribs that his breaths became high-pitched wheezes—

Harry’s throat burned and he coughed, the sound echoing from within the near empty cell as though he had coughed more than once, as if Harry were hacking up a lung.

It was unnerving. He sounded so weak, so desperate, so bloody  _fragile_...

Harry grimaced, hating his own vulnerability in that moment. He decided that he would never cough again. At least, never again in front of the Dark Lord.

“I do not need to try, it has already begun. Your fall from grace has been ensured, and you, dearest Harry—”

Harry shuddered at the endearment, the mockery and the pleased lilt in Voldemort’s voice making his stomach twist unpleasantly.

“—have yet to even fathom just how far along you have come...”

Voldemort paused, and considered Harry from his uptilted chin, looking far too amused at the subtle attempts of rebellion from someone who’s already so thoroughly defeated.

“Hermione Jean Granger...Ronald Bilius Weasley...I wonder what your friends would say if they could see you now,” Voldemort said. “If they could witness for themselves how their precious champion has been broken to such an extent that he cannot recognize the end when it is shown to him.”

A sudden wave of rage overcame him, the emotion noxious as it slid across his skin like a leather coat, the feeling making his shoulders quiver. “D-don’t you dare speak their names!” he spat.

For a sliver of a second, Harry took comfort in his anger. It ate away at the cold biting across his fingers, at the numbness eating away at his legs. It felt real and welcome, the way the hate flickered to life a comforting warmth that melted away the ice coursing through his veins.

“ _Foolish boy..._ ”

And then, just as quickly as the rage had come, it was snuffed out. The candle that had suddenly been lit from inside was doused by the frigid touch of water—of cruel reality. Harry felt his body slump against the wall, his limbs shaking with exhaustion.

 _What was that?_  Harry thought, unsure and confused.

He had never felt something as powerful as that before. A foreign emotion. It was as if he’d tapped into an unknown power he did not know he had. It was toxic, the rage familiar enough to make panic twist in his belly.

It was dense, like wading through mud and thick jelly. It was a hatred that not even Bellatrix could stoke. It was a fury that not even witnessing Sirius’s death could have lit... It was so unlike the madness Harry recalled licking at his skin when he had chased after Bellatrix all those years ago...the torture curse on the tip of his tongue.

Harry remembered that rage and fearing what it symbolized then. He had assumed that nothing could have compared to that fierce explosion of emotion. But now, Harry was uncertain.

That feeling that had ruptured in his belly, the one that had overridden his senses with the cloying feeling of loathing just seconds ago...it made his anger all those years ago look like a lit match…

Harry had never felt more afraid in his life.

Perturbed and unsettled by the fact that he had experienced something like  _that_.

“I believe it is time that we have a change of scenery...don’t you agree?”

Harry released a shuddering breath, confusion overtaking the fear that buzzed like static in the back of his mind. He did not know what to make Voldemort’s words at all, of what the man’s intentions were. Voldemort had never removed him from this cell before. He had made it perfectly clear that Harry would rot in that cell...but now, Voldemort wanted him out?

It just didn’t make sense. It made about as much sense as the hatred that had suddenly overcome him those seconds before—

But Harry was given no opportunity to voice his concerns, no opportunity to open his mouth and ask him just  _what_ Voldemort meant. There was no time to even cry out before darkness descended upon him, the red and white of Voldemort’s face swallowed by the black.

Harry felt his mouth part to release a gut-wrenching scream, to give voice to his terror at being plunged into a black abyss, but no words came.

No sound, no smells, and no white.

Just nothing.

And then felt himself fall.


	2. Splinter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Gore, Graphic violence, Sexual tension, Psychological torture, Nightmares, Manipulation, Suicidal thoughts, and pretty much everything that comes out of being imprisoned. Harry literally doesn't know what to do with himself, to be honest.
> 
> You are probably wondering why this is absurdly long. You may also be wondering why this has been posted when I said it would take me two weeks. I am also wondering both those things. But here it is. Another chapter that is 3x the size of the first.
> 
> Let me know how you like it!
> 
> Author Note: I had to change something in the plot that I just noticed went against canon. In this AU, Harry was captured during the mess in Malfoy Manor. So there are two other remaining horcruxes: the diadem, Nagini, and Harry himself.

Harry quickly learned that Voldemort had not lied.

Harry wished that had been the case, that the way Voldemort had traipsed into his cell that day had only been to gloat and nothing more.

But who could have anticipated the true purpose for the Dark Lord’s visit?

Harry knew the man better than most, having lived too long with the monster forcing images into his head, but still. No one could read the Dark Lord, and of course, the last time they had spoken they had been on...terrible terms, to say the least.

It should have been abundantly clear to him that that had not been the reason for his return. He should have _known_ that Voldemort would not return to him unless he had a reason.

Voldemort had promised him death should he ever return to his cell. So of course Harry had expected death, ready and willing to face it with his head raised high.

But that was not what happened. Voldemort had come for a different purpose that only registered later in his captivity.

Harry had learned the truth. Voldemort had not, in fact, lied to him. And that was perhaps the worst thing about the entire affair.

_The Light had lost._

Slaughtered and culled like animals, if what Voldemort had said was as horrific as he described. If the details he had shared with Harry after he had awoken in his newer cell were to be believed.

Voldemort had told him that no one he knew had lived. That all that had fought valiantly for the cause had been culled.

Harry had not believed it; had been more than certain that there were survivors. Voldemort could not have slain them all. There were so few with magical blood already, it would be of no benefit to the Dark Lord for more magical blood to be spilt.

Voldemort could not rule without subjects to rule over, after all.

However, Harry had not doubted that those that refused to surrender were murdered. It would have been naive of him to think that Voldemort, of all people, would spare even the Purebloods that lifted their wands against him. All that defied the Dark Lord were slain by the most bloodthirsty of Voldemort’s forces. No mercy granted to those that dared stand against him. Harry did not need to witness the bloody battle for himself to know that.

But still, Harry had hoped.

Voldemort had said that it had taken moments, seconds, for the tides to turn against the Order. Harry had doubted that, still doubted that, even now. His friends could not have been defeated as easily as Voldemort had claimed. Before Harry had been taken, they had been winning. They had the advantage where Voldemort did not.

Voldemort had shattered that illusion.

Even when Voldemort had left him alone in his newest cell, he could not _truly_ leave Harry alone without bestowing his personal brand of presents.

It had been sudden, the crushing weight of Voldemort’s mind in his own before images of severed limbs and heart-wrenching cries assaulted his senses.

Harry had seen once bright eyes fall shut, had seen fingers torn from clutching palms with the weight of a powerful spell. He had seen entrails strewn on dirt, and blood splattering on clammy, matted skin. He heard their screams for mercy, listened to girls and boys alike plead for a clemency the Dark Lord would never grant.

It had been sickening. The memories torturous  enough to make Harry’s stomach turn with revulsion.

Harry remembered throwing up for the first days he was haunted by the visions Voldemort had gifted him.

Even now, Harry shuddered at the memories, still able to recall, with excruciating detail, the pained expressions from the fallen and—  

Hogwarts.

His home, his sanctuary, the first place he’d ever felt safe in, now drowned in the blood of his friends.

A constant barrage of terrifying images violated the wonderful memories he had once associated with Hogwarts. Harry saw the moment Dean’s throat was slit, the red spurting outward to drench the laughing Death Eater. He heard Lavender Brown’s cries when Fenrir dug his teeth into the soft skin of her belly and tore through that flesh like—

The images had continued to flicker within his mind, unending and unforgiving.

It could have been months since the final battle, maybe even years, but still, Harry knew that the _hurt_ inflicted by the memories would never be dampened by time.

Contrary to what Voldemort had said, there were a few that had surrendered, and shown mercy. It was what Voldemort had told him after finally severing the connection between their minds.

Harry was unsure if that was Voldemort’s way of keeping him from fracturing; if the man had somehow seen something in his mind that he wanted to protect Harry from, as paradoxical as the idea was. But Harry had latched onto the hope that those words provided, seized on the fact that at least some of his friends had made it out.

That small sliver of hope was better than the haunting sound of death Voldemort had shown him.

Not that it mattered much in the end.

The Light had _lost_. His friends, Ron and Hermione, were no more. They were butchered and used as examples for all those that dared to defy the Dark Lord’s agenda. Their deaths more heartbreaking than even the vision of old classmates being tortured and killed.

Harry had been unable to stop them. He had been unable to stop any of it. He had been a prisoner while his friends were dying.

The guilt had been insurmountable.

Unbearable, even now.

He could still see their faces behind his mind’s eye. Watching, always watching, behind his eyelids, how Voldemort flicked his wand and a toxic green light shot straight from his wand. It was merciful compared to the more gruesome deaths Harry had seen, but that did not _matter_.

Harry recalled his own screaming, how he pled and begged Voldemort to spare their lives. He had promised Voldemort anything, had dropped to his knees in the posh room to show him just how serious he was in that moment. He had told him that he would never think of escaping again, that he would remain at Voldemort’s side if it meant that his friends could live.

Harry had hoped that it would be enough. That his promises to be a trophy, a symbol of Voldemort’s power over the Wizarding world, would suffice.

But his screams had been ignored. Harry would never see Ron and Hermione again.

And now, _now,_ Harry was alone. A bird trapped in a beautiful cell gilded in fine silks and grandiose paintings. Portraits and landscapes frozen still, in spite of the magic threading through the frames keeping them permanently attached to the bedroom walls.

It was a breathtaking room, without a doubt. A place that looked more appropriate for a prince, and not a prisoner. It was strange to think that Voldemort felt the need to move him from the dank cell below and into this newer, luxurious room. Though it made no difference to Harry which room he was in, whether he was suffering in a dark cell with only the clothes on his back to keep him warm, or the fine silks of his bed.

A cage with golden bars was still a cage. Harry was _still_ a prisoner.

Even if Voldemort had saw fit to heal him all those months ago, and return to him the legs Harry was certain he had lost.

“Harry.”

Harry flinched at the sound of his name, the hiss disrupting the silence that he had grown accustomed to over the past few months. It was rare for Voldemort to visit him. His duties since the culmination of the war kept his attention safely away from Harry.

It was both a blessing and a curse. A relief and an agony to be left on his own.

At first, Harry could not have been happier that Voldemort was no longer a parasitic presence latching onto the little sanity Harry managed to retain.

Voldemort always knew how to dig deep into Harry’s greatest worries. Knew how to say the correct words that inspired such suffocating hatred within Harry. A hatred so severe it threatened to splinter Harry’s sanity.

So any time away from Voldemort was good, Harry had assumed.

But he had been wrong. Just as he had been when he denied, almost mulishly, that the war had ended.

Voldemort’s absence was as overbearing as his presence. Between the silence in the bedroom and the almost taunting sunlight peeking through the sole window at the end of the room, Harry thought he might lose his mind. The isolation gave him too much time to think on his mistakes, too much freedom for his mind to wander down paths he did not wish to delve.

Because what more could Harry do but sit in this room? There were books, but there was no real interest from his end to read anything that belonged to the Dark Lord. No one came to see him, the bathroom at the end making the need for elves to magic away his waste unnecessary.

Not that the elves ever appeared to him now. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner was served at precisely the same time each day. Without fail, the tray would shimmer by his bedside, a new hot meal steaming as though it was just freshly cooked.

When days of his isolation became weeks, and those weeks became months, without even a whisper of Voldemort’s presence in Harry’s room...Harry had thought he would tear at the seams.

It was worse than before, because before Harry had hope that the Light would prevail. Now, there was no one but Harry, and no hope that anyone would come and find him. All he had were the memories of those fallen; the recollections of his friends in Hogwarts the only source of human interaction for when Voldemort kept his distance.

Until the recollections, too, became sullied.

Their voices became the echoes of a time past. Their brilliant eyes, the vision of a future dreamed for, but never reached. It was worse than anything Voldemort could ever say, worse than any visions the monster could force him to see through the blasted connection in the minds.

It had driven him mad. It had driven him to seek out anything that could drown the screams of his friends from out of his head.  

Even something as disgusting as the Dark Lord’s companionship.

And then it all began to unravel, the foundations keeping him firmly affixed to the real world eroding.

Harry found, to his horror, that he needed the man more than he needed air. He had needed a voice to pierce through the dying screams and the whimpers of pain that played over and over from inside his head.

Harry had _yearned_ for the Dark Lord.

And in that desperation, after months of madness; of his stomach lurching and his insides squirming, Harry finally came to a decision.

He had decided to starve himself.

He stopped taking his meals. He ignored the churning of his stomach, the twisting and the writhing in his gut when the days continued to pass without food slipping through his lips.

It was more bearable this way. The constant reminder of his failures became more bearable the more he turned away from food, until it became natural to gag at the sight of a hot meal. Until it became easy because the more he looked at food, the more he was reminded of the situation he was living in.

It was more preferable this way. Better to be dead than to live through this isolation. Better to be dead than this half-life he’s living.

Harry had been certain the Dark Lord would let him waste away. Because what purpose could Harry possibly serve when the world was practically within the palm of his hand?

It was more bearable this way, to fade away into nothingness.

Until it wasn’t.

When it was just him and himself, Harry began to doubt where the boundaries began to shape and form the person he knew as Harry Potter.

Hadn’t he said that he would never tolerate the Dark Lord’s company? And yet he had yearned for the man to come and break the aching silence—

_Silence._

Harry was so sick of the silence. So desperate for it to end.

It was maddening to only hear his own voice in his head...to see and feel only what he felt. There was nothing but his own nightmares; monsters waiting for him when he closed his eyes and _dreamed_.

But then, unexpectedly, Voldemort had come. His presence bursting through the sea of emptiness like a bright light in a darkened hall. His magic had writhed with his anger, like electricity buzzing through stagnant air.

Harry remembered the relief that had exploded in his chest. Joy had danced along his senses when he heard Voldemort’s sibilant voice. He had relished the anger in that voice, had nearly sobbed with relief when Voldemort pressed his wand against the skin of his throat, the pressure painful against his windpipe.

It had been the first real instance of touch in months, and Harry had never felt more alive than in that moment. His throat seized, his protesting stomach cramped pleasantly to finally _feel_ something other than nothingness.

These emotions...they were horrific. He should have been _disgusted_. He should have been content with being left on his own for as long as he had. But he hadn’t.

Anything was better than that chasm threatening to swallow him whole. Despair was an unrelenting mistress. It was more oppressive than even Voldemort’s mind pressing against his own. Sharper and more relentless than even Voldemort’s magic cutting into his skin when enraged. Harry would rather face Voldemort than the anguish hollowing out his insides. The burden was too much, the weight of his own guilt and shame like acid rain on stone.

It had eroded him, _still_ eroded him, even now.

Voldemort had gone again, after that, after he had forced Harry to eat, and threatened to curse him within an inch of his life. Then his life had devolved back into the bleak silence that he hated so much, and it stretched and stretched until it threatened to consume him whole again.

And Harry knew what it was that he needed to do to make it stop.

He needed incite the Dark Lord. He didn’t know why Voldemort bothered with him at all, why he wanted him to _live_ , but it was leverage Harry had now.

Cooperation would only isolate him. He couldn’t sit idly by or the loneliness would eat him alive.

So when Harry had his first vision of Ron and Hermione’s dirt-caked faces after _months_ , Harry did not cringe. No, he put them to rest.

It hurt too much to scratch deeper—Ron and Hermione had been his most cherished _friends_ , but they were not here and they never would be. They were his beginning and now, his end. A mere memory—their shadows of their former selves, and a reminder of everything Harry had lost.

Their memory was nothing to the blazing fire of the Dark Lord’s anger, the heat of his fury still fresh on his mind. He was a splash of red in a sea of monochrome, a beacon of radiance that Harry could do nothing but cling to with white-knuckled fists.

Telling himself that his friends were gone had been the hardest thing Harry had ever had to do. But Harry had to let them go, to let them _sleep_.

And Harry let them go. The sweet promise of numbness too alluring for him to resist.

It should have worried him, should have alerted him that something was _wrong._ Harry should have felt sorrow and grief tear him at the seams, but all he felt was numb.

Just _nothing._

But he savored the numbness even as it horrified him, even when it used to frighten him, and he slipped into bed and succumbed to empty dreams where he heard the echoes of the deceased within his mind.

His past became a mere whisper, slipping through his fingers like river water.

It was more bearable this way.

It had become harder to hear the shouts of Voldemort’s Death Eaters as they killed his friends, difficult to recall just what spell it was that had tumbled from Voldemort’s lips when Ron and Hermione slumped in their chains. The sounds had become unidentifiable, the voices muted. It was as though he were hearing their voices from behind glass, and Harry _relished_ that.

“ _Harry.”_ _  
_

Harry was ripped away from his thoughts.

“You have not been eating.”

The man’s annoyance was palpable even when his voice sounded dry and completely devoid of emotion.

Thrilled by the sliver of rage that flickered to life in the back of his head, Harry wanted to laugh. Their connection was still more than alive, even now. Though it was rare for anything to bleed through the heavy barrier Voldemort had crafted from his end of the connection.

It should have worried him that he could feel Voldemort’s irritation in that second. Irritation from Voldemort   _never_ boded well for him. But Harry could not bring himself to care. Any moment with the man was better than none.

Harry often wondered what his friends would say to that, what their reactions would be if they knew that he now goaded the Dark Lord for company.

Horror, perhaps. Disgust, even.

There was nothing good about his wretched relationship with the Dark Lord, but it couldn’t be helped. Voldemort was all Harry had. The man had seen to that.

“Astute observation,” Harry replied, before shifting on the wooden chair he’d been sitting on for some time and turning to look at the Dark Lord.

Voldemort was as horrific as he had always been. His skin pale and waxy from beneath the soft torches that crackled quietly in the lavish room. The light did nothing for Voldemort’s complexion, but still, Harry watched him.

There would be no point looking away. This was the closest to human interaction Harry would ever get, and it would be a mistake not to take advantage of it. He doubted Voldemort would stay for long.

What held the Dark Lord’s attention now that the war was over was anybody’s guess. Harry was still trying to figure that mystery out. Though Voldemort did not give him much to go on in that end. Voldemort rarely said anything about the outside world, reserving their talk to threats, or sometimes, simple pleasantries when he was in a good enough mood.

Not that that was often, since Harry had to stoke his ire to lure Voldemort back to his prison. It was irritating, really, but the man left Harry with little choice.

“I am not above force feeding you.” Voldemort said before slipping further into the room, the sound of rustling robes disrupting the silence that had fallen between them. “It is unbecoming that you still feel the need to act like a spoilt child.”

Harry could not help but smile, eyes glinting with amusement in spite of himself. Voldemort could most certainly try, but Harry would not make that easy. There was something about being contrary for no other reason than to piss the Dark Lord off that brought him great amusement. It would always end with him screaming at the end of his wand, but that was fine with Harry.

Better the pain than guilt. Better that he suffer through the shocks to his senses than live another moment with his own thoughts, whenever it was that the spectres of Ron and Hermione wanted to voice their disapproval at his actions..

“Perhaps, if you’d let me have some company. I may not feel the need to act out,” Harry said, a slow smile creeping up his lips.

It wasn’t as though Harry was lying. If Voldemort would only allow others to come, then maybe he wouldn’t _want_ the man’s company as much as he did.

Harry laughed when Voldemort simply sighed, red eyes glinting brightly with irritation before closing the short distance between them.

It should have been disgusting that Voldemort was closer than should be allowed, that the man’s robes were brushing against his legs. But Harry had long since abandoned those emotions. He hated Voldemort. He did, he truly did. He hated him more than he could ever have loathed Bellatrix, but there was no denying that loneliness made even nightmares seem palatable.

And, Harry would admit, that there were undeniable bonds forged in this hatred. It’s intensity was unrivaled. It was more powerful than even connections formed out of love and trust, if the fading memories of his friends were any indication.

There was only one conclusion.

Hatred was powerful. Loneliness was overwhelming. And Harry felt both in abundance.

“You are _mine_. No one is permitted to come here. They are filth undeserving of even speaking your name.” Voldemort hissed, and Harry smiled wryly at the claim.

_His._

In a way, Harry would agree. It didn’t matter that Harry was not there by choice, that he was a prisoner. Voldemort had clipped his wings when he had killed his friends, and he had nearly shattered him when he had abandoned him to his own loneliness.

He was Voldemort’s personal trophy of sorts. No one could see him, no one could speak to him. Voldemort was his past, present, and future…

Not that Harry would ever admit to that. Even if he had been targeted from the moment he had been born, even if he had lived a life for the purpose of defeating Voldemort, Harry would never share that piece of information. Nothing angered Voldemort more than him denying that, so what reason did Harry really have to give in?

Submission meant isolation. It meant months inside his own head, and Harry vowed that he would do everything in his power to never be alone again. If that meant denying something as simple as Voldemort’s ownership of him, so be it.

Harry lived because Voldemort had yet to kill him, because the monster refused to let him die. Everything would be better if Voldemort would simply kill him, but Voldemort never whispered the words. He never dared to even voice the threat now, not like he used to back in the dank cell.

Harry still wondered what had changed.

“Yours?” Harry scoffed. “Do you think confining me in this room makes you my owner? I am a prisoner. I am not here by choice, not here because I _want_ to be in your company. If it were possible, I would leave. Even if you hadn’t ravaged the world like the plague that you are, trust me. I would be gone.”

 _I would be dead_ , Harry thought morbidly.

Harry watched Voldemort as he spoke, his smile stretching into a grin when Voldemort’s lips twinged almost imperceptibly. It was a slight flicker, one that anyone else might not have been able to discern. But Harry knew Voldemort well enough, could read him better than anyone else. It also helped that there was a stirring in the back of Harry’s mind in that second, like a light flickering on, before shutting off as quickly as it had come to life.

Voldemort’s firm hold on his barrier was slipping. Harry could practically taste the fury in the back of his tongue like the sweetest candy.

_Good._

Voldemort’s face twisted, thin lips stretching into an angry grimace. It was almost demonic, the way his bright eyes gleamed.  His skin stretched, the wrinkles in the man’s face like creases along white parchment and Harry couldn’t help but follow the lines along the man’s mouth, between his brows when they furrowed in irritation and relaxed when the man wanted to hide his expressions.

Harry tried not to laugh.

He wasn’t sure when he had become such an expert in all things Voldemort, or when he had become more capable of fishing out these little details from looking at the man’s serpentine face. Perhaps it came to pass some time ago, in the days when Harry would spend hours watching visions of Voldemort behind his eyelids, or hearing Voldemort’s sibilant utterances in the back of his head when he tried to sleep.

It was a gradual progression, and although it should have been worrying just how skilled he had become in this matter, Harry welcomed it now. It was a means to an end, a method that would ensure that Voldemort did not let him rot in his gilded cage.

It was almost beautiful to watch, to see the way red and garnet danced in the man’s gaze. One representing hunger and one representing bloodlust. His pale skin clashed, but it fit, in its own way, against the harsh clarity of the Dark Lord’s eyes. Almost mesmerizing, the way the monster’s pupils thinned and expanded, and how they grew and then contracted within the pools of crimson.

A flurry of emotion trapped him there. There was anger and possessiveness and they danced along Voldemort’s irises...drawing Harry in easily as he continued to watch, riveted.

Voldemort was _beautiful._

“ _Liessss.”_

Voldemort hissed in parseltongue, and Harry felt gooseflesh ripple across the exposed skin of his arms.

So beautiful that sometimes Harry forgot where they were in the conversation—

Harry felt his breath hitch when Voldemort was suddenly on him. A cold hand wrapped around his throat and began to squeeze tightly, blocking all air from coming out of his gaping mouth.

Harry’s hands shot up to grip that unyielding wrist, digging blunt nails into skin, but the man’s grip was unyielding. So he clung, uselessly, to Voldemort’s wrist as he tried to make sense of what was even happening.

After what felt like months of nothing, the violence came out of nowhere.. It was like he’d plummeted from the tallest tower towards his death after months of standing on the edge.

Harry did not know what to do. In all the time that he had been confined, in all the days that he incited Voldemort’s rage by luring the man back to his cell with self-harm, Voldemort had _never_ actually touched him.

The nearest Voldemort had come to touching him was when the man had pressed of his wand to Harry’s neck, or when he would sidle close and his robes would brush against his legs.

It was never the cold press of skin against skin, never the touch of clawed fingers digging into quivering flesh. Harry’s stomach lurched, and he squeezed hard around Voldemort’s wrist to stop himself from collapsing to his knees.

It was an unspoken rule. One that Harry did not understand the inception of because it simply _was_. It was what he knew, what he understood without the words ever needing to be stated.

And now Voldemort was breaking all the rules. Harry felt his stomach clenched in itself, as if Voldemort had pressed his hand against the skin before burying itself deeply inside his belly to squeeze his insides.

Harry felt conflicted. _He felt_ _elated and terrified_. The torrent of emotion in Harry’s mind was difficult to understand, on top of his struggle for air, but all he could gather, all he could discern from the shot of adrenaline curling up his spine was that this was was _different._

_Something had changed._

_And it felt_ —

Harry choked and clawed against Voldemort’s wrist. “W-what are you do—?”  

 _“You know what I think, Harry?”_ Voldemort interrupted, the violence in the man’s tone melting into a soft croon.

It had been sudden, the rage in Voldemort’s eyes dissolving into cold amusement.

Harry felt himself shudder, eyes widening in surprise.

 _I’m nervous_ , Harry realised.

That was what he felt stirring in his insides. Nervousness and... _fear._ It had been a long time since Voldemort had inspired something other than amusement in him. An even longer time since he elicited something other than anger and relief.

It was dizzying the way Harry’s heart began to beat rapidly in his chest, but he did nothing except stare into Voldemort’s eyes—unable to do anything else but stare into his eyes..

Voldemort’s hand was wrapped around his neck, his grip firm, but still loose enough to let Harry take in shuddering breaths through his parted lips. His body was dangerously close to his own,  and Harry found it difficult to breathe. Even the act of breathing deeply became too loud and too intrusive compared to this parody of intimacy.  

It was unreal. It was absurd. Harry could scarcely believe that Voldemort was _touching_ him. It was _his_ skin pressed against his neck, it was _his_ hot gaze on his face. It was _his_ breath wafting against his cheek, the smell of earth and iron thick in the man’s parted mouth.

_“That you are lonely...that you need me…”_

Denial was thick on his tongue as he tried to find the right refusal, but the words refused to come. His throat felt tight, and his stomach quivered pleasantly when Voldemort’s nails suddenly dug into his skin…

Adrenaline shot up Harry’s spine. A strange heat danced along the gaps of his vertebrae.

“ _You fear that I will abandon you...that you will be forgotten and left to waste away in your pretty little cage…”_

Harry gasped when forced him to his feet by his throat. All without looking away from the threat in the man’s eyes.

There was no pain, no resistance when his Occlumency was poor at best. He was helpless and defenceless when their connection abruptly flared to life.

His legs shook, his tight grip on the man’s wrists slackening when he could feel Voldemort’s mind inside his own head.

It was like a blade cutting through butter. It was intrusive and obtrusive. Voldemort sifted through his thoughts like they were used paper waiting to be discarded and Harry too powerless to stop it.

They glided through every memory of himself sitting in this cell, going mad with shame and guilt, and it was a raw nerve Harry never wanted exposed. Voldemort dragged the bitter emotion straight from the dark corner Harry had shoved it to, and Harry wanted to _die_.

Voldemort pulled, and Harry felt his mind give, felt his loneliness, always the loneliness, stirr like a dark shadow in the back of his mind.

Harry was terrified, unable to stop himself from choking down a sob when Voldemort squeezed him tight enough to stop his breathing.

_“But I will never leave you...you are mine. More than you even realize…”_

And then Voldemort was forcing him away from his chair, the strength in the man’s skeletal frame impressive as he shoved Harry into the wall. A landscape painting dug uncomfortably against his upper back. It was a shock that the painting didn’t tumble to the ground, or that his glasses didn’t slide from his nose from the ferocity in that single, rapid movement.

But Harry couldn’t  think on it, not when Voldemort was strangling him.

“S-stop,” Harry managed to choke out.

Voldemort didn’t. He continued to sift through Harry’s memories, continued to press his palm into his windpipe until black spots began to dance along Harry’s vision.

Harry scratched as his vision blurred and he grew victim to his memories. Moisture began to pool at the corner of his eyes, and his stomach grew tight with fear for what would await him there.

Harry blinked and he saw himself flinging a tray of food to the ground, felt the phantom memory of desperation and rage in the back of his head like tiny fingers pressing and digging through his hair in a caricature of a soothing motion.

Suddenly, he realised where he was.

It was the night Harry had first decided to starve himself; the plan borne from anger and grief when he had woken to the dying screams of Ginny Weasley…

 _Oh._ Harry started to shake. _Ginny._

He remembered Ginny. Ginny had warm brown eyes, hair like his mother’s, and was so full of life and vitality, not this, this—

Harry thrashed, the memories flooding through him like a dam cracking open. He didn’t want to see this again, he didn’t want to _feel_. He didn’t want to see her brown eyes wet with tears, or the red of her lips stained black by old, decaying blood. He didn’t want to see each network of veins beneath her translucent skin, or the blue of her fingertips.

They flickered through his mind, iron and bile thick in his esophagus, and he watched the girl’s mouth part to release a heart-wrenching scream even though she was _dead_ —

Ginny was _dead_. Cold as a block of ice, but still Harry could hear her screams. Still, he could see the tears she last shed before she’d been slain, could smell the stench of rotting decay burning through his nostrils, could still taste the vomit in the back of his throat when he felt his stomach revolt.

Harry needed air.

“N-no!” Harry cried out, tears streaming down his cheeks because he didn’t want to _see_.

Voldemort was holding him, but still he fought. Thrashed and struggled within the Dark Lord’s clutches because Ginny was _screaming_ . His ears were ringing with the screeching, and _Merlin_.

The stench of rotting meat was unbearable.

Harry was reduced to begging.

 _Merlin, please,_ he sobbed. _Please make it stop…_

And then the connection broke.

Harry slumped against the wall, exhausted and wrung out like a rag, succumbing completely to Voldemort’s hold on his neck in spite of the dark spots dancing along his vision, and the way his throat burned.

It _hurt_...but this pain was preferable to the horrors waiting for him in the dark. Preferable to the nightmares that would follow after seeing Ginny rigid and sunken like a broken doll. He averted  his eyes, choosing instead to stare at a painting at the opposite wall.

Because he couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t bear to see her or any of them in his head.

“ _My dearest Harry...how foolish of you to think that you could hide your thoughts from Lord Voldemort…that I would not see the lengths you would go to acquire my attention...”_

Harry wanted to melt into the wall, his cheeks burning with both embarrassment and humiliation because _no_ . It wasn’t what he wanted, it wasn’t something he had done by choice. He just didn’t want to see them any more. He didn’t want to suffer, he didn’t want to be alone with that... _monster_ waiting for him in his head.

He couldn’t bear to be left alone. He had _no one_.

He hated Voldemort, he did. But he would run into the man’s arms before he allowed himself to sink into that abyss...before the waters rushing up his ankles in his mind bubbled over, grew and submerged until his mouth was gaping open for air.

This was wrong. It was so _fucking_ wrong. It was all wrong, but this was a bond of necessity. He didn’t want Voldemort like the man’s tone implied, no. He would _never_.

 _“If that is what you wanted,"_ Voldemort hissed in his mind. _“All you needed to do was ask, my precious horcrux…”_

Harry froze.

And then terror, mind-numbing and all-consuming terror, exploded within him.

Harry was spurred into action, his grip on Voldemort’s wrist tightening before he began to struggle within the man’s hold. He could still feel the effects of Ginny’s memory in his mind, but it could not compare to the sinking feeling in his stomach.

Ginny was grief and horror.

But what Voldemort had said, what the words _implied_.

 _That_ was terror.

 _No, no no,_ Harry pleaded in his head. _Oh Merlin, no._

 _“Yes,” Voldemort hissed, “so it seems that the old fool knew what it was that you were….”_   

Harry cried out when Voldemort  pushed his legs against Harry’s own quivering legs, and closed the space between them.

It felt as though death itself was scalding his flesh. It burned, like an incendio cast in the summer’s heat. As though his body were melting from the inside because Voldemort was _touching_ him.

Repulsion warred with thrill. Harry’s jeans were a pitiful barrier against the contact, and it had been so long since he had felt something other than his own hand against his skin, or since he had felt heat from something other than the touch of hot water from a scalding shower…

Harry pressed himself against the wall, but there was no avoiding Voldemort. He was surrounded, engulfed by the man’s very presence. He shot his gaze to his serpentine face in spite of everything urging him to avoid the monster’s eyes after he had slipped so easily into his mind. After he had been forced back into that terrifying moment and forced to relive the suffocating horror of Ginny’s screams.

“ _How fitting that you should crave your master’s presence...that you should need me when my soul rests within you…”_

Voldemort’s eyes seemed to swallow his own, when the red flickered brightly in the darkened shadow. It had a glow of its own, a light within that curbed his shudders and captured Harry’s gaze, making it difficult for Harry to turn away. A promise of violence, wrapped in  suffocating possessiveness.

Harry sank into it, unable to resist.

His throat was trembling. Voldemort’s grip on his neck softened until his nails were only a whisper, scratching lightly at the skin. Pain flickered to life, but Harry paid it no mind, gave it little attention when Voldemort’s eyes were captivating him...the black of his pupil so dark that he could see reflections of his own enraptured face.

The bone white of the man’s skin glowed like a stone beneath a full moon. It was effervescent, the almost wet sheen making him gleam.

A hand glided up to grab his chin, and Harry’s breath hitched. Voldemort slipped a finger against his parted lips and tease at the sensitive flesh of his bottom lip.

The gesture was mesmerizing, the fear curling within his belly _arousing_.

 _This is wrong_...something whispered in the back of Harry’s mind, words unbidden even as he felt a slim finger press inside. It tasted of iron and dirt—of the cold touch of death.

And Harry could not get enough. Even as all rational thought begged him to push away. To resist against the touch of Voldemort’s body against his own and the insistent press of hardness against his stomach.

“ _You do not wish to be alone...do you, Harry?”_ Voldemort crooned.

Harry’s back arched when that sharp nail teasing his tongue dug painfully against the warm, moist flesh. It was a jolt to his senses, and Harry eyes fluttered shut despite the warring feeling of revulsion and desire twisting at his insides.

“ _Answer me.”_ Voldemort hissed, softly but with authority.

Harry’s eyes snapped, mouth opening awkwardly to speak despite the finger currently pressing against his tongue; the nail was digging hard enough to cut…

“Y-yes,” Harry felt his voice crack.

His mouth fumbled around the finger carefully so as not to bite the digit, afraid of what might happen if he knicked at the skin. He hated the weakness in his voice, hated that even though he despised  Voldemort and abhorred everything this man had done to him, Harry still needed him.

Harry hated that this, whatever _this_ was, made his heart race, made his life burst with sensation and made his abdominals clench with _need._

 _This is disgusting, why do I_ —

Voldemort’s eyes flashed dangerously. “ _I can do that for you, my little horcrux…”_ he said, before removing the finger he had slipped easily into Harry’s lips.

His chin felt wet with his saliva, his bottom lip coated as he tried to regain control over the quivering appendage. Harry refrained from pressing his own hand against lips, to trace the path that Voldemort had taken when he stuck his finger into his mouth.

Voldemort had touched him so softly. It...surprised Harry.

It was almost reverent, the way the man had caressed him. As if Harry were something _precious_ . As if he were something _important_ . The urge to touch was unbearable. The trail Voldemort left behind tingled like the  press of a cold knife against his clammy skin...poised to dig and _carve_ into his flesh.

But Harry ignored the heady mixture in response to the more tactile side to the Dark Lord, both afraid and curious of what the man might do next.

Harry’s heart began to beat rapidly in his chest, chest tight when Voldemort leaned in.

“ _I can keep you at my side...always...forever…”_

The man was so close that Harry could see a phantom remnant of Tom Riddle from the past in the subtle flecks of black hidden in his red eyes.

It sounded too good to be true.  

Voldemort wanted something.

The man was trying to manipulate Harry. He knew that this was a ploy, could feel it in the heat emanating from the man’s thighs when something hard pressed against his stomach.

It should have revolted him, should have terrified him that Voldemort was capable of something as human as that. But he wasn’t, he couldn’t. Voldemort was dangling, right beneath his nose, a means to escape the haunting memories waiting for him when he closed his eyes...whenever the man departed and left him alone for Merlin knows how long.

It didn’t matter to him that he was Voldemort’s horcrux. It didn’t matter to him that the man _knew_ of the darkness waiting for Harry with hungry jaws, the jagged maw gaping wide as if to swallow him whole, to crush him in that abyss along with the dying screams of Ginny Weasley and everyone else he’d murdered indirectly.

None of that mattered, had mattered since the war was lost.

There was no one and nothing left but the feeling of Voldemort’s magic lapping at his flesh like thirsty tongues.Voldemort’s skin against his, Voldemort’s voice erasing the horrors of his own empathy—these were the only things separating him, always, from the dark shadow in the back of his mind that awaited him.

Harry wanted death, but Voldemort would never grant him that. Voldemort never had, in all the time Harry had lived within this room, in this _hell hole._ And now Harry knew for certain that Voldemort never would.

Pride had no place here. For the sake of survival against madness, Harry was willing to be manipulated.

“W-what’s the catch?” Harry asked, voice soft as a whisper when Voldemort’s eyes continued to bore intently into his own.

A strange gleam flashed in the man’s gaze in that second, too quick for Harry to discern its meaning, and Harry flinched when Voldemort’s soft touches along his skin became more insistent.

His fingers were strangely soothing despite the frightening look on Voldemort’s face. He caressed Harry’s skin, moving up slowly to tease along his wet cheek. And it’s...similar, too similar, to how Hermione would stroke the soft fur of her cat back in Hogwarts.

A memory Harry could _not_ handle right now or, maybe, _would not ever_ wish to. So he buried the thought deep into the recesses of his mind and redirected his concentration to the man in front of him.

Voldemort lingered, and Harry waited for a response, sinking into the silence that had fallen between them. The air stirred with each movement the Dark Lord made, but Harry focused only on the man’s eyes, anticipation thrumming through his veins. He wanted to hear what the man would say—no, what the man would _ask_ in return for that.

There was a price to be paid, Harry knew. He would pay it regardless of what it was, but he still needed the illusion of choice. Still needed to play the part he had settled into after months of behaving purposefully contrary for his own sanity.

Then Voldemort’s spoke, his breath wafting across Harry’s cheeks. “ _A horcrux…”_  

Harry frowned, confused.

What could Voldemort possibly want with a horcrux? Harry was already one.

He had also destroyed nearly all of them when he had hunted for them with his friends during Seventh Year. Not that he could go out and destroy the remaining few now that he was imprisoned. Voldemort knew this; he had carved pain and agony into his bones as both punishment and repayment when he had learned of his activities before his capture.

It made absolutely no sense, and his confusion must have been apparent on his face because Voldemort smiled, his lips stretching into a gruesome expression that made Harry’s lungs still. His breaths quickened until he was almost panting, noting when Voldemort paused his soft touches along his cheek to drag a sharp fingernail too closely to his eye.

Harry’s stomach turned, and he felt true panic overtake him. Nothing good ever came from an expression such as this.

“ _You will make one for yourself...so that death, dearest Harry, will never rip you from my grasp…”_

Horror drowned his senses because _no_ —he couldn’t possibly—he would _never_ —

Harry refused to kill. He refused to mangle his soul in the same manner that Voldemort had done.

The man was absolutely mad if he thought Harry would—

“ _Or I will leave you here...alone,”_ Voldemort threatened _. “No distractions from the terrors that afflict you...No protection from the nightmares that await you. You will be here with only your thoughts as company, and I_ —I _will assure you that I will not come...”_

Without conscious volition, his hands reached out to clutch onto the Dark Lord’s shoulders as if the man would somehow evaporate like smoke and leave him as he had said. It took him another second to register that his shoulders were trembling. Voldemort’s words reverberated in his head, the whispered promises echoed like droplets in a silent room.

“ _No one to hear your screams...No one to listen to your cries for mercy that only I can provide…”_

_No!_

Harry couldn’t possibly kill someone. He just couldn’t do something as horrific as that.

He had never killed before, had never considered something as gruesome as that, even in his most daunting moments in this room. He prided himself in staying true to his values, never using his wand to take a life. The only death he desired, the only death he _needed,_ was his _own._

Then he remembered that pride had no place in the face of survival.

It was in that moment where Harry truly felt that he hated Voldemort. The cloying feeling of anger and despair clouding his senses because the man couldn’t possibly give him this choice.

How dare he? How _could_ he?

Harry hated him with everything he possessed and more. Hated him more than the nightmares in his head. More than the cries and visions of his friends dying ceaselessly behind his eyelids.

But never enough to kill, never enough to twist his lips in the shape of the killing curse.

Harry began to hyperventilate. “N-no, I can’t do this.”  

Voldemort clicked his tongue, as if disappointed. The sound echoed in the silent room, and Harry heard his displeasure as if it was sung in his head. There was a finality in the gesture, a cruel amusement in the man’s expression that made Harry want to vomit.

“A shame. I suppose this is farewell, it does not seem that you need me as much as you had professed,” Voldemort said in English, the abrupt change from parseltongue jarring to Harry’s senses, and deeply upsetting.

It was the only warning Harry had before Voldemort stepped back, slipping out of Harry’s desperate hold with an ease that left Harry stumbling for balance.

Voldemort turned his back on Harry, and deep panic settled within his bones when the man did not turn to acknowledge him as he moved. His robes slithered on the ground, the slap of his footsteps the only sound save for Harry’s short breaths.

_No!_

Distressed, Harry panicked, scrambling up to chase after the Dark Lord because _no_.

He couldn’t be left alone. He would lose his mind, he would go absolutely mad if he closed his eyes and Ginny was there waiting for him. He knew Voldemort would leave him there to rot; there was nothing keeping him here.

And the man was not above doing something to ensure that Harry could never harm himself again.

If Harry was left alone, then there will be nothing to do but relive the haunting memories over and over in this cage...

“I’ll do it!” Harry shouted, ears ringing, surprised at his own volume.  

Voldemort stopped.

His movement slow as he turned to face Harry, and bridged the gap Voldemort had created moments earlier.

Harry couldn’t believe what he had said, but Voldemort had left him _no choice_.  He was caught within Voldemort’s web, the obvious manipulation in the man’s intentions enough to make Harry want to scream.

He was being manipulated, Harry _knew_ that. He was being moved like a pawn on a game of chess from the moment Voldemort had arrived. Since the beginning, it was only a matter of time before Voldemort’s true purpose for his visit would reveal itself, and this was it. This was what the man had wanted, and Harry closed his eyes in shame because he had succumbed. Harry had given him what he wanted.

Harry thought he had been broken by the loneliness, but it seemed Voldemort _always_ found new ways to break him.

Voldemort grasped his chin between his fingers and tipped his gaze up. The gleam in the Voldemort’s eyes bright with mirth and victory; the man’s excitement poorly hidden now that he had gotten what he wanted— _that bastard_.

“Oh?” Voldemort asked, amused. “Are you certain? You sounded quite...adamant of your answer earlier.”   


Harry gritted his teeth, irked and ashamed, but he did not say a word. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, the weight of his unspoken words crushing as he contemplated just how much he’d changed.

 _The old Harry would never have given in so easily..._ a voice that sounded like Hermione whispered in his head.

 _The real Harry would never have even contemplated murdering someone for himself...he would have chosen death than given in..._ said another, one that sounded awfully like Ron, his tone accusing and angry.

The old Harry would never have given _anything_ to Voldemort. But he wasn’t _that_ Harry Potter. He wasn’t the same boy that had fought through a war, bright-eyed, reckless and _naive_ , hopeful that the outcome of decades worth of war would change because of what some prophecy preached.

The old Harry Potter had his demons, but _none_ were like the ones he faced now. His monsters were man-made, they were living manifestations of the guilt that ate away at his innards like a parasite. They were not real, and they were not there, but Harry had learned that the worst monsters weren’t the ones that crept out from underneath one’s bed, or that hid between the mountains of clothes in one’s closet…

The worst monsters were the thoughts in one’s head; the ones that ate away at one’s sanity, and the ones that wore the face of loved ones in one’s darkest moments…

Harry’s monsters did not need to be physical, to stand in front of him. They did not need to be Voldemort, the living, breathing, manifestation of the boogeyman he’d been introduced to from the ripe age of eleven.

Voldemort was _nothing_ in the face of his guilt. _This_ monster paled in comparison to the loneliness crushing his heart, to the nauseating images in his head.

Disgust made his throat burn.

He couldn’t believe he was actually doing this.

“Yes, I’ll do it,” Harry muttered. “A-as long as you keep your end of the bargain.”  He had just given his word…

...to commit _murder_.

Harry could hardly recognize himself.

_Who am I?_

There was a long pause before Voldemort spoke again, his eyes seemingly searching for something in Harry’s own gaze for what felt like an eternity. Harry didn’t know what the man was looking for on his face.

But when Voldemort spoke, it seemed that whatever it was the Dark Lord was looking for, he had found it.

“Excellent choice, _Harry_.”


	3. Meat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author Note: I had to change something in the plot that I just noticed went against canon. In this AU, Harry was captured during the mess in Malfoy Manor. So there are two other remaining horcruxes: the diadem and Nagini, aside from Harry.
> 
> I would also like to point out that I had to add in another chapter because this is getting long. I apologize for this lmao.
> 
> Warnings: The nightmare starts to pick up here. It will only get worse from this point forward. No sexual content yet, but all the other horror tags start to apply here.

Harry stomach roiled when the moment finally arrived, his shoulders tense as he tried not to squirm where he sat contentedly in his gilded cage.

Voldemort had told him he needed a week to prepare, to acquire the necessary equipment and ingredients for the ritual. Why it would require that much time when the Dark Lord had instant access to most potion ingredients now that he was Minister of Britain was strange, but Harry accepted that explanation.

He didn’t want to know what taking the proper measures entailed — what preparing to split one’s soul required — considering it was  _ his  _ soul that would be mangled beyond repair, Harry would rather that the process be as painless as possible.

A rather ironic and deluded thought, frankly, but Harry was content with delusions.  

He was still hesitant, still unsure of what to do when Voldemort finally stepped through his bedroom door with everything on hand. 

Harry figured he’d learn soon enough, considering this was the seventh day, the seven scratches on the wall indicating just how long time had passed since Voldemort had slipped into his room. It had made him anxious, for the man to be away as he was...the dread that he would not return eating at the back of his mind.

Whispering and taunting him...that Voldemort had  _ lied... _ that Voldemort would not  _ really  _ keep his end of the bargain, and that he was simply toying with Harry’s desperation for kicks.

It wouldn’t be out of character for Voldemort to do so at all. That was what worried Harry. 

These thoughts were difficult to rein in, like pulsing of torrential rain after days and days of drought. The anxiety tempted him to bite on his blunt fingernails until he caught skin between his teeth; the temptation to stop sizzling in his brain, but difficult to reach. But he made do with the cards he’d been dealt, at least for the moment. The buzzing presence of Voldemort in the back of his head allowed him to focus on that connection rather than on the loud shrieking of panic pulsing against his mental walls. It was the only thing keeping him somewhat  _ sane _ .

Voldemort had been...gracious enough to leave him with that little connection to keep him sane. Though Harry would not really call it a kindness when Voldemort could simply have stayed, and chosen not to do so. 

He could simply have spoken to Harry from inside his head whenever the anxiety became too much. Harry was certain the man knew, but instead of doing anything about it, Voldemort spent the majority of his days blocking Harry out…

But the moment had arrived. Today, Harry would kill.

Harry didn’t want to. He was already unrecognizable, a total disappointment to the memories of the people he loved. He had become a shell of his former self, letting his grief and his fear of loneliness — and what a failure of a Gryffindor he was — dictate what he was willing to do.

But they had to understand...they had to  _ know  _ that Voldemort had given him no choice. There was nothing willing about what he was being asked to do, nothing  _ normal  _ about the need he felt to be at Voldemort’s side.

Harry wasn’t sure if it was just the Dark Lord, or if _any_ company would do. The allure he felt to the Dark Lord was so _intense,_ that it had to be unique—it was bordering on obsession—but. But. Harry recognized that this fixation was borne out of necessity and a whole slew of experiences he didn’t want to remember right now.

Not that the Dark Lord would give him the opportunity to test that theory...The man was possessive. 

Harry wondered if anyone even  _ knew  _ he was alive, if Voldemort, since learning of his...connection with Harry, had told his Death Eaters that he’d killed him just to save face. Just to ensure that no one would ever come looking for Harry in his prison in...

Whatever this place was. 

Harry still did not know if this was Malfoy’s mansion or if this was a different place.

Harry was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of the doorknob jingling. The lock clicked, before the door opened.

It took him by surprise. There was no slinking, no whispers and no threats. It was the most mundane thing Harry had ever experienced since he fully expected the Dark Lord to make a dramatic entrance. The man had always taken a sick sort of delight in scaring the wits out of those that had the misfortune to come into his radar. 

So it was surprising to see the Dark Lord standing at the entrance with a house elf at his side. Harry blinked in confusion at the unexpected spectacle before him, and was about to ask a question when Voldemort suddenly lifted his palm, interrupting him.

The command could not have been clearer.

“Do not speak.”

Harry swallowed before nodding his head, still confused as to why there was a  _ house elf  _ standing by the door. A muggle was what he had expected, a metaphorical denunciation of the values that Dumbledore had instilled in Harry, and Harry only needed to commit the killing before Voldemort would take care of the rest of the ritual. 

It was what Voldemort had said, albeit vaguely, before he departed with just the soft sound of his robes rustling in the room. Harry knew he should have been more insistent, that he should have asked more questions to get a better sense of what creating a horcrux would entail.

There was no time for small regrets. Harry would find out soon enough.

Voldemort surveyed Harry’s room for a moment, his forehead scrunching in thought before nodding, seemingly satisfied with something. 

What that something was, Harry could not tell. His room looked no different than it had before. 

There was a bed. A bookcase. Two night dressers. Several paintings hung along the cream walls. The furniture was a rich mahogany that glistened brightly beneath the sunlight and moonlight that would stream from the single window in his room throughout the day. There was no doubt that it was not a  _ plain  _ room, even if Harry could not be bothered with something as banal as that.

Though that still did not explain the Dark Lord’s sudden interest with the decor.

Harry frowned, and confusion slowly melted into irritation the longer the man continued to remain silent when Voldemort did nothing else for several beats. The man seemed lost in thought as he stared off into the room, and Harry detested being ignored. 

“...Bitsy, stand beside the bed.” 

Harry watched with raised brows as the house elf — Bitsy — shuffled quickly to do as his master bid. 

The poor thing was small, with droopy ears. The elf wore a flour bag as clothes, and Harry could not help but feel sorry for the creature, empathizing in a whole new way with the helplessness he could see in Bitsy’s large eyes. 

Harry turned to survey the hall beyond the door and felt dread immediately lodged in his throat, foreboding curling in his stomach because...

...That could only mean  _ one  _ thing. 

“No,” Harry said firmly, his voice carrying more conviction than it had in  _ months _ . 

He would not kill a house elf. It was  _ sick _ , it was horrific. It was  _ wrong _ , and Harry would have no part in that. He doubted he could even lift his wand and make magic flicker from the tip of it. 

He recalled the difficulty of casting the  _ Cruciatus  _ curse when he had been chasing after Bellatrix’s cackling voice. At that time, Harry had been possessed with anger and grief. He had felt hatred, the first inklings of the black in the back of his mind. And still, he could not curse the woman. Still, he was unable to carry the sufficient intent to punish her for what she had done...

Did Voldemort truly think that Harry was capable of doing something like this? It was ridiculous. There was no way he could kill Bitsy. He had  _ hated  _ Bellatrix, and still, he couldn’t do it. What made the Dark Lord think that things would change now?

Harry was desperate for companionship, had considered killing some stranger just to prevent the slow erosion of his sanity. He was many things, but this... _ this  _ Harry would not do. 

This was not who he was, even if isolation had made him consider things he would never once contemplate.

If the thought of murdering a cruel sadist like Bellatrix had made his stomach churn before, then the idea of killing a house elf —a poor, defenseless house elf— made him want to vomit.

“...No? Have you so quickly forgotten what the crushing feeling of isolation feels like?” Voldemort stated, his voice so soft that Harry could scarcely hear him.

“Have you, perhaps, taken for granted the wall that I have erected between your most haunting thoughts and your conscious mind?” 

It was not a reaction Harry had expected, being more accustomed to the man’s usual explosions of anger. Any show of defiance, any show of...resistance was always met with a swift curse and an enraged hiss. It was instinctive for Voldemort. Practically second nature to act first and ask questions later.

Harry was at a loss, the hairs on his forearms rising instinctively when Voldemort’s eyes flickered to his own...the red of his irises making his blood freeze in his veins. They swirled a vivid garnet, almost angry like the furious flush in pale white cheeks. Violent, a tempest of crimson that nearly blinded him…

Harry was so used to fury, was so used to heat and  _ chaos _ . But this was not this. Voldemort’s eyes were like a frozen heart, like the sticky fluid caught beneath the bed of one’s fingernails. It was not passionate, it was not emboldened and impulsive. 

It was  _ calculating _ . The sharp end of a knife, the tip of a scalpel tinged a bright ruby.

It was frightening, just how cold the gaze was. How the same possessiveness Harry had often seen lurking in those depths could make his heart nearly stop dead in his chest. 

But who could blame him for his fear? Who could begrudge him for the horror twisting inside him when there was no blood lust within those depths? ]There was no anger, no fury crackling like a large fire in a hearth.

It was just so  _ cold _ . Such an obvious threat.

Harry could only swallow with dark anticipation.

“Shall I remind you of what it is that you are running from,  _ Harry?”  _ Voldemort crooned, and Harry felt something pop. 

It was like the sound of bone cracking apart, like a rubber band being pulled and  _ pulled  _ until it snapped.

Harry cringed when the mental wall, the block in his head, began to lift and fall away like the sand between the palms of an errant child. He could pinpoint the weakness in the foundation, the spot in his mind where Voldemort was pulling back to unveil the horrors waiting at the other side.

He caught a flicker of blue in the darkness, of strands of red hair dancing along black, and Harry stopped breathing. 

There was only one person with those characteristics…Only one monster in his head with hair as red as blood.

Then fingers dipped through the gap in the wall, and the barrier rippled like water as the blackened fingers curled and uncurled as if struggling to reach for something in the air. The fingers grew until a hand passed through the barrier. Until a pale, white wrist burst through the undulating walls...

The mangled wrist was stained with more of the blackened substance...the fluid more like ink than the blood it  _ should  _ have been.

Harry’s lungs heaved and his heart beat rapidly.

_ No… _

He couldn’t live through this again. He couldn’t bear to face Ginny again.

Harry shot the Dark Lord a frantic look, desperation blowing his pupils wide. He couldn’t speak, unable to find the right words to get the man to stop. 

A mound of red began to bleed through the inky darkness, the gelatinous wall shuddering when the hand pressed flat against the wall, as if it were  _ solid _ , as if it were  _ concrete _ , to push against it.

Like if Ginny’s corpse were trying to find its footing in the crack of Voldemort’s mental walls.

_ Oh Merlin, no! _ Harry shouted in his head, shoulders trembling. 

And then he screamed.

The familiar flash of deadened brown, of blue and white splotches on a white, waxy face the features of a face he once knew.

It was Ginny as he had last seen her in his mind, as he had last remembered while forced to relive the culmination of the war. 

His body was frozen with fear and his arms hung uselessly at his sides as he stared almost helplessly at Ginny Weasley in his mind and the Dark Lord in the world of the living. 

“P-please n-no,” Harry begged.

The worlds bled into one another...the creme walls of his prison sinking into the abyss the longer he remained in his own head, the more the Dark Lord let the demons trickle through the protections in Harry’s head. 

“Ginevra Weasley,” Voldemort hissed, “a living  _ corpse  _ in your mind. A summation of all your fears, of all your weaknesses in a dead girl you once loved...how fitting.” 

Harry shook his head, eyes closing shut, ignoring the strange groaning that began to filter through his ears, the voice high and guttural as though a predator were standing in front of him...As if a monster was waiting for him to lower his guard to pounce.

“I’ll do it, I  _ swear. Don’t let her through!”  _ Harry shouted. 

His voice was unrecognizable to his own ears. 

Another hand slipped past the murky black, exposing more and more of Ginny’s rotting corpse. Her hair dangled and clung to her hollow cheeks as she stared at him with vacant eyes.

Harry remembered how often he would stare into those eyes...how the sky above reflected within when she smiled up at something in the Quidditch Pitch. It was a moment of innocence, of pure joy at being able to sit and relish a moment of deep contentedness.

It was also the moment Harry began to realize what he felt, a deep affection that was more than of a sister…and more than of a friend, the longer he gazed into the warmth in those eyes.

But there was none of that warmth now, none of that clear sky reflected in those orbs. 

It was  _ despair _ . All he saw was despair and it  _ wanted  _ him. 

Harry was drawn away from his thoughts when Voldemort’s body suddenly began to flicker, the gilded cage Harry had resided in for what felt like forever disappearing along with him. It was like the real world had lost signal, as if there was a terrible reception between his own mind and the world as it existed.

The static of Ginny’s groans and wet smacks against the walls pulled fiercely at his mind.

_ Nononononono _ —

“I wonder what will happen if the wall just crumbled...if it will only be a dead girl waiting for you on the other side?” Voldemort hissed.

Ginny’s breaths started to echo in the chasm as the radiant colors of his bedroom evaporating into  _ nothing. _

Voldemort’s voice began to lose its strength, the hiss fading out like static.

Harry pressed his hands to cover his ears. “P-please don’t leave me here, don’t  _ leave me like this _ …” Harry begged. 

It wasn’t until the familiar ‘ _ shh’  _ of Voldemort’s own breathing began to fade that Harry started to cry.

There was nothing but Ginny’s own desperate groaning breaths, the wet smacking of her palms beating against Harry’s mental shields. The slaps became more frantic as more of her bled through the undulating walls.

Harry was caught between absolute, oppressive silence, and Ginny’s moans and slithering movements. 

There was no escaping her, no Voldemort as buffer between the chasm swallowing all other sound and Ginny’s insistent presence.

There was no blocking her out, no hiding from the monster there.

It was all bloody  _ useless. _

Voldemort’s voice grew clear once more to taunt him. “Will she eat you, Harry?” he asked. “Will she smear you with her dead blood,  _ kiss you  _ with bile wetting her moist tongue…?”

Harry stomach heaved, the stench of death acrid in his nostrils when Ginny’s entire body squirmed through. The gaping maws of bright red and black oozed a viscous fluid. It was like a paste, a blackened red paste, that continued to leak from the gaping wound at the center of her chest and from the cuts and incisions on her arms.

She looked ready to break. Her body bloated and wet, as though she’d come up from the bottom of the Black Lake. Just like the inferi that had risen from the depths of the cave all those years ago, hands jutting out from the seemingly calm surface of those waters.

The hands desperate and hungry as they reached for him, ready to drag him deep into the abyss.

Then, Ginny’s left leg passed through, the foot smacking wetly on the floor. The girl’s knee was turned inward, broken somehow. It went against everything Harry knew about the human body, and everything he had known about Ginny Weasley.

The leg looked nothing like the girl’s sun kissed skin. It was pale and bruised just as the girl’s face was. There were gauges in the flesh, as though someone had stuck claws into the skin and pulled until the meat was exposed for the world to see. 

The inside was as red as Voldemort’s eyes, glistening brightly even as black oozed from the open sore in the limb. 

Harry’s nose burned when he breathed in more of the offending stench, the smell like vinegar and spoiled meat; the twin scents making him gag as another leg slipped through.

There was another wet smack in the dense silence, and then  _ fear. _

“...I wonder what it is that she will do once set free,” Voldemort taunts. “What it is that  _ you  _ will do once she passes through—”

“No!” Harry interrupted, before it shut on its own.

Then Harry’s mind exploded with the noxious emotion to the point that the world looked as it was caving beneath him His arms and legs twitched with its power, but that was the extent of his agency. His body refused to move.

There was something keeping him still, forcing him immobile even as the girl’s slouched body began to straighten, her head still hanging strangely for her body.

And Harry saw why. At some point, Ginny’s head had been snapped; the bone poking out from her throat in the mockery of a teenage boy’s Adam's apple.

Harry wanted to run, to flee, to  _ fly _ . To do something other than standing helplessly, but he was unable to do anything else except  _ watch  _ her through his closed eyelids.

He wished more than ever that he couldn’t see her, that his poor eyesight in the real world could somehow seep into the universe within his own head.

Slowly, the girl tilted her head up, and her mouth parted as if to speak. Gooseflesh breaking out against his skin when foreboding settled deep into the pit of his stomach. 

Harry waited. He knew what would come next.

Ginny shrieked, a bone chilling, piercing cry erupting from mangled lips. Harry cringed at the sound, hands shooting up to cover his ears.

He’s been here before. Nothing that he did could ever drown out the screams.

She screamed, and  _ screamed _ . Her vocal chords were somehow perfectly intact despite the decrepit state of her broken neck as she pushed away from the wall with a plop, trying to find its balance.

Harry’s stomach roiled, bile threatening to crawl up his esophagus.

Ginny began to move, one of her legs sliding on the ground...the ankle twisted and mangled to a degree that it was a miracle the corpse was capable of standing at all. She was slow, almost languid, as she tried to right herself, and Harry could only watch as her face, slick with water and blood, focused on him.

Her mouth widened as she continued to shriek, and Harry nerves sang. The tell-tale urge to move was almost painful as he began to fight against the force keeping him permanently still. 

But still, he could not move.

_ M-move! Bloody hell, move! _

He wanted to scramble as far away as he could, to lengthen the gap that was steadily being bridged with each step Ginny took. A trail of black and red droplets scattering on the floor as she passed...

Ginny’s fingers, twisted as they were, reached out for him as he struggled furiously.  There was a gaping hole at the center of her palm, and Harry was unable to ignore the bright red and black of the fluid dripping from.

Panic swelled in Harry’s chest, dug its claws deep into his gut as she crept steadily closer...

“P-please,  _ Voldemort…”  _ Harry begged, but the man had melted away into the darkness, and had vanished completely.

Voldemort was gone. As if he had never been there in the first place.

Harry reached out through the connection like desperate hands reaching to grab onto the smoky tendrils from a dying flame. He screamed and forced all of his energy to burrow himself into Voldemort’s mind. 

But there was  _ nothing.  _

There was no sound from the other end, not even the static of broken connection. There was no anger, no hatred, no amusement, even as Harry opened himself up completely to feel  _ anything  _ from the other end. It was as though there was no bond between their souls, as if the fragmented piece inside him had been carved out from his very chest.

It was pure silence. An absolute, mind-numbing void that Harry could not wade through even as he cried out desperately for Voldemort.

And still, Harry insisted because he had to do bloody  _ something.  _ Ginny was coming—she was getting too close, and it was only a matter of time before there would be nothing separating them at all…

He reached even when there was nothing, pushing out to the outer limits of the connection he  _ knew  _ had to be there. He pushed and prodded with the stray hope that perhaps if he simply kept going that the man would come back.

He kept pushing because maybe Voldemort would give him another chance.

It was disgusting just how hopeful he was for the attention of a  _ murderer _ , but this was who he was now. This was who he had become and there was no point in feeling shame and disgust.

Still, Voldemort did not answer his calls.

Endless, dreaded, silence was all that remained. 

Except for Ginny’s dying shrieks.

Harry screamed himself hoarse, desperate when Ginny’s wet slaps on the ground became louder. He practically sobbed for Voldemort to raise the barrier, and  _ save  _ him from the presence that drew closer and closer with each passing second.

“Vol—” 

Harry’s scream died in his throat when something wet clenched around his shoulder.

_ O-oh please, no. _

Fingers. Wet and sticky fingers were digging into his shoulder, the stench of rot and rancid blood making his vision swim. 

Fluid seeped through his green T-shirt, staining it an inky black, He didn’t need to look to know who it was that had grabbed him—to know that it was  _ Ginny _ .

He refused to turn around. He didn’t dare when hot air— _ Ginny’s breaths _ — tickled against the nape of his neck before something moist trickled down the open collar of his shirt. Droplets of red and black, the same substance Harry had seen seeping out from Ginny’s open mouth.

And now it was  _ on  _ Harry’s naked skin...dribbling beneath his shirt.

Revulsion made him shudder, and he was unable to repress a whimper when the firm grip on his shoulder suddenly tugged him, and forced him to face her. 

Harry’s choked, but he could not scream. 

Ginny was standing in front of him completely naked. Her flesh was like her leg, almost bone white, with bruises and wide gashes decorating her with glaring red and black.

He stared at her with despair twisting his insides. There was a hole where her heart had once been, and wide gauges in her stomach, but he was afraid to look much closer...terrified that he’d see inside and find her twisted insides.

Her nose flared and mouth wrenched further open, almost inhumanly so, as she continued to scream. She didn’t stop even as Harry shook beneath her vacant eyes. Her fingers unyielding, digging deeply into his shoulder when Harry flinched away from her scalding touch.

She leaned in, and Harry tried to jerk back, Voldemort’s taunts from earlier suddenly coming to mind as her face grew nearer. Her breath made him gag when the smell of rancid meat assaulted his nose.

_ Oh Merlin, please tell me she isn’t _ —

But Harry’s legs were rooted in place. All he could do was curl his toes in horror as Ginny’s face grew nearer and nearer, his own horrified reflection captured perfectly behind the mask of death in Ginny’s eyes.

“P-ple—”

Ginny pressed her rancid lips to his own, and Harry lost all ability to speak.

Harry gagged, repugnance and fear consuming him as the girl’s tongue breached past his lips to coax his own into moving along with hers.

It was a parody of a lover’s kiss. A parody of a fond moment shared between a couple. 

It was  _ disgusting.  _

Swallowing his bile, Harry did not reciprocate. He did not respond in the hopes that what he was tasting, that what he was feeling was not—

_ Nonononono _ —

Harry’s vision began to blur at the corners. The world faded into white as the texture of Ginny’s slimy lips followed his descent into unconsciousness, and chased him through the meandering path into insanity. 

Harry fought savagely to free himself against the force that bound him, chasing after the small semblance of freedom, and sprinting away from the chains that weighed him down.

There was so much white. It was so bright that Harry was nearly blinded by it, but he did not resist it.

The white hurt, like the sharp bite of teeth on sensitive skin. But it was preferable to the horror, to the suffocating weight of Ginny on his soul. 

Her bloody spit, the iron and rot made him cough and hack as he fought harder to sink into that comforting blankness. 

Because anything was better than Ginny. 

If Voldemort was a monster, then Ginny was death itself.

Her gnarled fingers clamped tightly onto his shoulder, the grip so unyielding on his skin that Harry was certain that whenever it was that he woke up there’d be bruises coloring his flesh brilliant purples and blues. Like black paint on a white canvas...the stain forever ingrained in the molecular gaps between the threading…

_ If  _ he woke up, that is.

Ginny was his executioner, his Grim Reaper. She was the noose around his neck, the rubber band ready to snap.Or perhaps, this just  _ wasn’t  _ her at all. Maybe this was Death simply pretending to be her, masquerading itself as the girl Harry loved to grant him one last kiss before asphyxiating him...a teasing press of slick flesh against his own lips to serve as a reminder of just what it was that he was missing.

Harry wanted to fade until he no longer was. To cease to be, to nestle his weary mind into the nothingness that reached for him in this abyss.

_ Anything was better than this... _

Ginny’s face, too, began to melt beneath the brightness, and Harry could only watch as her skin drooled until only a skeletal face with haunting brown eyes remained, and then—

_ White. _

Harry screamed one last scream as the world vanished.

Ginny’s lips was the last thing thing to fade from his consciousness.


	4. Wire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know I said I would be updating bi-weekly. That was not the case. My beta and I were busy with the holidays so I could not deliver these chapters before the new year (and the start of my semester).
> 
> Because of this, the posting of the final chapter will be delayed. I cannot promise Part V will be posted until after May. I apologize for the inconvenience this may cause.
> 
> Please leave comments sharing your thoughts on this chapter. I warn you now that some of the tags from above become relevant now. Read at your own risk. This is not a happy story.

Harry resurfaced with a loud gasp, the nightmare—that had felt all _too_ real—melting away to reveal the familiar outlines of his bedroom.

His skin was itchy, and the memory of Ginny’s cold, clammy grip on his shoulder made his stomach twist. The stench of decay burned into his nostrils as he took in deep, greedy breaths from his lungs...the acrid smell of rotting meat burning down his throat with each inhale.

The world spun as he tried to make sense of the familiar contours of his bedroom, the rich colors too overwhelming after feeling as though he’d spent an eternity in a sea of black and then _white_.

It was difficult for him to separate himself from the chasm tucked away, so carefully hidden, in the corner of his mind. To forget death and breathe life, to suck in shallow breaths with the taste of metal and sour meat lodged in his throat.

_Merlin, Ginny..._

He could still see Ginny’s vibrant red hair and dull brown eyes in his head, the only source of color in that world of nothing. A brilliant glimmer. A bloodied specter that refused to stay dead...

Harry pressed his hand against his face to stifle his nausea, to chase away the bile from spewing from his mouth. His fingers were wet, clammy, and sticky as he pressed his shaking fingers to his eyes, shifting away his round glasses for a moment to rub at them furiously.

He didn’t know how it was that he was still standing in the middle of the room, how his legs had not collapsed beneath him from the horror of feeling Ginny’s lips and tongue slip into his own slack mouth—

But he was standing, he was _free_ , if only for the moment. Though that still did not explain the strange stickiness in his fingers that refused to abate, or the way it left a strange consistency wherever his hand touched.

It was as though a film had been laid on his face wherever his hand brushed. His fingers clung to his face uncomfortably, oddly reminiscent of his Hogwarts days...of the times he would leave the dining hall with his fingers sticky after smearing jam onto his toast that morning.

The memory quickly faded, shaping into another that flashed behind his closed eyes, more insistent than the bile burning low on his esophagus. The picture exploded in his mind, a blazing inferno in a sea of black that made his head spin and his stomach protest.

It was so intense that Harry could not withstand it.

Harry’s spine bowed, and his legs trembled under the thick weight of dread suddenly squeezing his lungs.

_Pale white hands blackened and wet, knobby digits stained red at the tips. A large, gaping maw at the center of waxen skin, its edges as though torn and ripped by sharpened claws…_

Harry stomach heaved, but nothing came out.

_A thick, viscous substance that oozed from parted lips, the paste gelatinous as it trickled from the corner of that mouth as though it had been frozen and begun to melt. The stench foul and acidic as it breathed its noxious breath onto his pallid face..._

Harry choked, but he could not move. Refused to move because _no_ , she couldn’t have followed him here. She was always in his head, _only_ in his head.

Fear overtook him, blood rushing from his beating heart up to his head swiftly, the sensation dizzying, as he tried to rein the cloying horror.

 _Get it together,_ Harry said within his head, _she isn’t here..._

He hoped beyond all else that it was true.

He couldn’t see her again. He couldn’t wake up from the nightmare only to be thrust into it again. The taste of death was still thick in his mouth, the memory of those fingers...of those moist hands on his shoulder, pushing and tugging him nearer, were too fresh on his mind.

Harry opened his eyes, unsure of when it was that he had closed them, and of _why_ he had not opened them. She could only follow in the dark, only slip through the cracks when he closed his eyes and let his mind wander. This cage was his escape, the colors a beacon in a dense thicket of _nothing, despair,_ and _loneliness_ that wanted to claim him for their own.

The world was still spinning even as he tried to focus, but the colors soothed him. If only for a moment.

He could see the faint outline of crème from the walls around him, and the dark brown of the furniture. He stared intently at the explosions of blues, pinks, and greens from the impressionist paintings decorating his walls, only skirting his gaze away from them to eye the gardens depicted in a few landscape frames nearer to the window.

This was his room.

Harry’s gaze shifted, and then his heart seemed to still. Sound falling away, reality parting for a moment because _no_ , _this did not belong here!_

_Red._

Harry moved his hand from his face, slipped it further back to truly look at what it was that he was seeing...that what was clinging to his hands was _red_ — _vivid, frightening red_ —instead of creamy tan skin.

_It was red like Ginny’s hair, the color gleaming brightly from beneath the setting sun. It was red like the coppery flecks in Voldemort’s eyes, like the center of a brilliant flame. Red like blood trickling from an open wound, like the torn flaps of flesh stretched taut...red like splayed thighs with thick rivulets of the coppery substance oozing from that meaty maw._

Harry vision darkened, the sound of his own breathing suddenly too loud as his eyesight dimmed, and his legs collapsed beneath him.

 _Where had the blood come from?_ Harry could not help but think, dry heaving as the world faded in and out. _Why are my hands stained in blood?_

Harry gasped, arms collapsing to his sides as though weighed down. He wanted to close his eyes, to press his hands into his face and drown out everything around him.

 _But my hands...my hands are stained too_ …

The urge to scratch at his face was overwhelming, but Harry repressed it. He ignored how his face was both hot and cold from the blood he’d smeared on his skin.

It was unmistakable that that was what it was...that it was blood when it was so _red_. He was suddenly suffocating in the rich smell of metal and copper...something he _should_ have recognized earlier, but failed to.

“...Harry.”

Harry was pulled from his thoughts, the voice calling to him in the seemingly empty room. He knew that voice, had yearned for it, hoped for it in the endless nothing in his own head.

It was soft, almost gentle as they fluttered in through his ears.

Harry was warmed by it, the cold sitting in the pit of his stomach melting away from something as simple as Voldemort speaking his own name.

“I did not think you had it in you. I am most pleased....”

Harry shuddered at the praise, toes curling when a hand suddenly wove into his black hair, sharp nails scratching his scalp pleasantly.

Heat spread from that single point of contact, and Harry cast his gaze out to discern just what it was that Voldemort meant. It was just them in the room—here was no one else. The elf was gone, Harry had assumed. The echoes of his own pants and groans from the vision of blood reverberating without interruption are the only sounds inside the enclosed space.

A trail of blood, just a meter ahead, froze Harry. It was spreading from the carpeted floors, the source of the blood unknown with the bed blocking his view of the floor at the other side of the room.

Dread bloomed in Harry’s chest, mingling confusingly with the relief that settled deep into the marrow of his bones at the sound of Voldemort’s voice, and the man’s fingers dancing along his skin.

Harry swallowed, nervous and unsure.

“W-what do you mean?”

There was a beat of silence, and anticipation curled in Harry’s belly when Voldemort finally chuckled. It was like the hiss of a snake, the sound merging into one another seamlessly.

“I would have a preferred a less... _muggle_ method. But this will suffice. All the ritual requires is death. It never specified that it be through _magical_ means.”

Horror exploded in Harry’s chest. “I-no, what?”

Harry could not believe what the man had just said, what that deceptively soft voice uttered so nonchalantly.

Harry _couldn’t_ have done what the man was implying.

He had been trapped in his own head, frozen stiff with fear and disgust as Ginny assaulted his dreams. There was never any murderous intent, never any anger or aggression, even when she’d tasted like what Harry imagined a Dementor lips would taste like—what Harry had assumed its open maw would _feel_ like as it ripped the very soul from out of its victim’s mouth.

“It is unfortunate that I cannot thank Ginevra Weasley personally for the gift,” Voldemort said. “It brings me great... _joy_ that you complied so readily despite your resistance.”

The same noxious feeling of terror tore at the sliver of relief he had managed to garner, and Harry shivered.

“Now, come Harry, we are not yet finished.”

Voldemort’s fingers fell away from Harry’s hair before he suddenly gripped onto Harry’s shoulder. It was tight enough to bruise, his nails sharp points that Harry was certain could pierce through the thin fabric of his shirt.

And then he was hauling Harry to his feet.

Harry scrambled to gather his bearings, to find his balance, when Voldemort’s grip was unyielding as he dragged him to the other side of the room.

His world continued to spin, but Harry followed without a fight even as his mind struggled to come to terms with what was even happening. Voldemort had said he had killed someone, that he had _murdered_ that house elf in cold blood. He hadn’t said it with too many words, had not directly stated that he had _killed_ Bitsy, but—

_Merlin._

Harry could not believe it, even as his mind reminded him of the stickiness beneath his nails, the bright stain of red on the palms of his hands every time he clenched his fingers into fists.

The blood had to have come from somewhere.

Harry yelped when Voldemort suddenly shoved him, the backs of his knees smacking against the corner of his bed before he collapsed backwards into a pile of limbs. The sheets were soft against his skin, the fall gentler than it could have been considering who it was that was dragging him around as if he were no more than a rag doll.

Still, it had been abrupt.

“What are you—?”

Harry’s voice died in his mouth.

Just by the window, at least two meters away, was the house elf he’d seen earlier. Or at least, its head.

The rest of its body was missing.

Bile rose, and Harry turned onto his side to stave off the sudden spasms that overtook him at the sight.

_Oh god..._

It was Bitsy, but its neck was mangled. Bent and twisted, unlike anything Harry had ever seen. It was nothing like the deaths Voldemort had forced Harry to see.

_It’s neck…_

It looked as if someone had torn the poor thing’s head straight from its body, like someone had _hacked_ off its head with a blunt knife. It was barbaric and crude, it's esophagus dangling like loose strings from the ripped skin.

Harry felt another wave of nausea seize him.

“You were quite ruthless,” Voldemort said, amused. “Its screams were like an aria, the sweetest of songs, the loveliest of compositions. It is unfortunate that you were not quite...yourself to appreciate the sound or to truly embrace the weight of what you have done…”

Harry threw the man a horrified glance.

 _I killed_ —

Harry shot the thought down before it was completed, body racked with convulsions when he caught the look of absolute terror in the house elf’s eyes. They were flat and dull—too similar to the horror frozen in Ginny’s face.

“Now, repeat after me. This will not work if you cannot utter the incantation correctly.”

Harry’s heart raced, mouth opening and closing.

He could not speak. He did not know what he could possibly say. There was nothing he _could_ say. If what the man had said was true, if what Harry had seen in his head had made him do something as gruesome as this…

Then Harry had changed more than he believed. There was no turning back from something like this. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, no hope that Harry could, one day, leave with his mind somewhat intact.

 _How could I?_ Harry thought, mouth dry as he stared almost helplessly at Bitsy’s head. _How could I have let things get this far? Let Voldemort back me into a corner and—_

Another shudder wracked through his body, stomach roiling and ready to heave acid from his insides.

 _Loneliness is a powerful thing, Harry Potter._ A voice hummed in the back of his head, the sultry sound warped like static in the back of his head. _Terror and desolation…_

_Guilt._

The voice, sweet and mocking, giggling. _He did warn you, you know..._

Harry had never been more ashamed in his life. The guilt, the _horror_ , at what he had just allowed too much for him to bear. It squeezed his lungs like a vice, the emotions sandwiched between the horrifying sight of Bitsy’s corpse and the cruel reality that the voice was _right._

The loneliness had forced him over the deep end...there was no other explanation for something like this. His own terror and isolation, the very two things he had once believed he could overcome, had steered him down this path.

And he had been _blind_ to it. Willfully, stupidly blind to the abyss waiting for him at the end of this nightmare.

It was too late for him to go back. No other path but forward.

Ginny had seen to that.

“ _Separarent.”_

Harry’s released a deep, shuddering breath when Voldemort stepped into his space, a clawed hand catching him by his right ankle, nails embedding themselves into the cuff of his trousers to drag him to the edge of the bed.

Why the man did it, unknown to Harry as he tried not to melt at the seemingly innocuous touch.

Harry forced himself to watch the Dark Lord’s face in an effort to ignore the pleasant warmth that seeped through his trousers, focusing instead on how the light above Voldemort’s head highlighted the vibrant shade of red in his eyes and the pallor of his milky skin.

Harry took it all in without hesitation, staring at the way the shadows crept along the hollows of Voldemort’s cheeks, watching how they emphasized just how flat the man’s flat nose was, how it eliminated all trace of humanity in that monstrous face.

The shadows only made him look more ominous. Powerful, yes, Harry could not deny that. But frightening all the same, and those reptilian features were only made more pronounced by the rich colors of his bedroom.

_But nowhere near terrifying as Ginny’s vacant eyes...nowhere near horrifying as those broken lips parting into a smile, teeth like broken piano keys as she pulled away from his lips as if to savor his taste…_

Voldemort was _normal_ compared to her.

Harry's skin crawled when Voldemort’s red eyes bore into his, the crimson bright and intense as hunger flashed and lingered in his gaze. Harry could not ignore it. No one in their right mind could ignore something as odd as the Dark Lord staring a _hole_ into one’s face.

Harry couldn’t help but flush brightly with discomfort at being stared at in such a way.

Voldemort’s desire was so _blatant_ that Harry would have had to have been blind not to see. It was so perverse, so different from the coldness Harry was used to, that he did not know how to react.

The shift in the atmosphere was so sudden that Harry could easily pick out the similarities between free falling while chasing after a Snitch in Quidditch and Voldemort’s heavy presence. It was nearly identical, the strange tingling in the pit of his stomach, the feeling of finality if he made one careless mistake…

It was so inappropriate, so _sick_ that Voldemort could sport such a pleased expression when someone had _died_ , when Harry had _murdered_ someone and be...

...not at all aware that he had.

It didn’t matter that Voldemort considered the creature an “it.” To Harry, this was another life lost. Another soul tossed to the wayside because of _him._ Bitsy would not have died if not for him. His friends would not have died if not for him.

_Ginny would not have died if not for him._

Tears burned at the corners of his eyes suddenly, and Harry’s lip trembled as he tried to find the wherewithal to do as Voldemort said.

The monster had freed him from his own nightmare earlier, but that did not mean that he would be so merciful a second time. If Harry angered the Dark Lord in that moment, if Harry did not speak the words required to see this bloody nightmare through, then he would be trapped in his own head.

Forever.

Ginny and him.

The weight of each sin, of each life, including Bitsy’s, cutting through flesh and bone. The blade twisting through sinew, etching through muscle without resistance.

Harry could not do it again. He couldn’t go back to the darkness. Not with _her_ waiting for him there.

 _Sightless eyes, empty and fixed on his own. Blood red where it should be white; veins black and purple when they should be unseen, hidden away by once warm skin_ —

Harry closed his eyes, banishing the thought, before steeling himself for what he was about to do. His fingers curled against the sheets beneath him for purchase, all too aware of Voldemort’s hungry stare on his face.

“ _Separarent…”_ Harry mimicked perfectly, his voice louder than it had been in a long time.

It echoed in the near silent bedroom, the utterance seemingly carrying power of its own. Harry couldn’t quite pinpoint why this was, but he wouldn’t think about it when he had just done as the man said. Perhaps, the words did have power, perhaps the words themselves were as final as the life he had ended without meaning to at all.

Either way, he didn’t _care_. Whether it did or didn’t, in the end, was unimportant.

There was a shift in the air. The soft rustling of robes the only warning Harry had before cold fingers touched his forehead, the digits separating the mass of curls clinging to the skin to reveal his scar. It took everything within him to keep his eyes closed, to resist the impulse to look at Voldemort when his skin began to burn wherever Voldemort touched.

It was mild at best, nothing too concerning. It was innocent, and a little pleasant, even. It was _touch_ , something he had not experienced in Merlin knew how long. Something only he could experience at the hands of the Dark Lord since he’d been imprisoned.

So it was entirely unexpected when that heat erupted into soul wrenching _agony._

Harry’s scar flared to life, like the heat of a _Fiendfyre._

Harry’s eyes popped open and his mouth parted wide to scream in agony. The pain was like acid on flesh, like the slice of a blade on fragile skin...flaying him alive. It burned, it stung, and tears fell from the corners of his eyes when the pain suddenly swelled, pulsing in time with the rhythmic beating of his heart as he struggled to contain his screams, unable to ignore how his skull cracked is if it were breaking open.

_Stop!_

Harry begged in his head, silent from his suffering, unable to speak the words when he was tearing at the seams.

But instead of heeding his cries, of listening to his pleas, the pain only worsened. The agony became so intense that Harry could no longer hold himself still, his spine arching with each wave of pain.

He tried to resist the heat that lapped at his skin, to fight the rush of electricity shooting up his spine like a livewire, but nothing that he did worked.

It was a tempest. A hurricane consuming everything that crossed its path.

“S-stop!” Harry shouted, but the pain did not end.

There was no stopping the agony.

It spread from his forehead, slipped past his head, down until it exploded once more at the center of his chest.

It was like his chest was being torn open, and his heart was being carved out of his chest. Like his insides were yanked out of his stomach in the same, twisting fashion Lavender Brown’s had been and scooped out for Fenrir to suck into his mouth.

Nausea flared to life in Harry’s stomach. It took everything within him and more to stop himself from throwing up.

“Shhh, it will soon be over. Patience, my horcrux…” Voldemort said from somewhere above Harry’s head.

The voice was soothing in spite of the pain sending sparks of electricity down his spine, despite the current running through each network of nerves in his body. Harry threw himself into it, a reprieve from the endless torment.

And then, just as Harry was certain he was about to go mad, ready for the world to shatter into small fucking pieces, it abruptly stopped.

His chest heaved, and Harry’s world spun until three of Voldemort were standing right above him.

There was a new lightness in him. A surrender where there once was resistance. It was like something precious unhooked itself from somewhere deep inside.

_Wha—?_

Harry collapsed into a shuddering heap, and a strange whisper came to life in the back of his head that sounded _oddly like…_

... _Like parseltongue spoken through deadened lips, like black eyes and black hair smoothed into perfect submission...like “yes, sir” and “no, sir, nothing at all” from a poisonous tongue._

It could have been forever, it could have been seconds, before Harry’s rapid breaths finally settled into calm exhales. His heart still raced like the rush of water slipping through a crack in a dam, but there was no helping that.

His forehead still ached fiercely after that overwhelming agony had consumed him. He would need more than a few seconds to recover, but he was still marginally better than he’d been before.

Something was clearly amiss, completely _wrong_ , Harry had felt something give, but he was better...far better than he had been for some time.

Though Harry wasn’t certain how anyone would feel better after undergoing something as excruciating as that. That had been the most painful experience Harry had ever had in his life. Single-handedly worse than when he’d had the _Cruciatus_ curse thrown at him repeatedly when he had failed in his first and last escape attempt.

 _Nothing_ could compare to the splitting of one’s soul, to the sensation of something tearing apart without explanation. Harry could not describe it, could not put into words just how it felt to feel something as precious as his soul come apart...but that had been what it was.

That was the _give_. There was no other explanation for it, Harry knew.

How Voldemort had survived doing this eight times, how Voldemort still had enough of a mind left to even consider taking over the Wizarding world, was a bloody miracle.

Harry never wanted to experience something like that again. And guessing from the almost smug air around the man, Harry doubted Voldemort would subject him to something like this a second time.

One horcrux was more than enough.

“...Better?” Voldemort asked, a pleased hum leaving his lips.

Harry did not trust himself enough to speak, his throat dry and tight after screaming for as long as he had. So he nodded his head instead, unsure of what else to do now that the deed was finally done.

Though, now that Harry was no longer felt like he was breaking in two, there was still the question of _where_ Voldemort had placed his soul.

Not that it mattered much now. The man could keep it in a box for all Harry cared in that moment.

Harry had done as the man asked, even when he had not wanted to. Voldemort had to keep his end of the bargain now. He would never leave Harry alone to his nightmares again… He would never leave Harry to the sickening isolation that tempted him to snuff out his very life.

Where his soul went and what Voldemort chose to do with him now was no longer his concern.

Harry did not resist when soft fingers trailed along his calf then, his eyes fluttering shut to revel in the comfort that it brought.

It was gentle, just as Voldemort’s fingers had been when they twined into his hair.

It warmed him in a way that it hadn’t before, the familiarity of those fingers making him melt further into the bed. Even as something nervous tugged at him to resist it, a voice he had not heard since he’d been left to the monster’s in his own head urging him to fight this.

It cried to him, begging him to move.

_He murdered your parents, Harry..._

But that heat, it was incredible. Nice.

How could he fight something that felt more right than wrong? When his insides squirmed happily when those fingers climbed higher on his—

Harry froze, and tried not to squirm as his mind sobered when that hand smoothed over the top of his knee, that strange heat lapping at his skin sensually.

He was unsure of what was even happening. He had never felt something like this before. It was as though his insides were boiling, melting like ice in a hot mouth when Voldemort’s palm settled over his leg and his warmth seeped through Harry’s trousers...

All Harry knew was pain and the occasional comfort of finally touching another. This was _not_ even close to either of those things. This was _pleasure_ beyond his wildest dreams, beyond any pithy experience he’d had thus far.

“Ah-er, yeah…” Harry said breathlessly when Voldemort’s palm crept past his quivering knee and higher up his thigh.

Harry had never been more aware than in that second of Voldemort’s touch. It went against all reason. Harry should not have been as pleased as he was at being touched by a monster. Not when there was a corpse just a short distance away...not when Voldemort had forced him to split his _soul_. It should have revolved him. Disgusted him, even.

But none of those realities could stop his abdominal muscles from tightening with bliss, from showing him just how amazing it was to feel warm skin against his.

 _What is happening?_ Harry thought.

_Was this what being touch starved entailed...was this a normal response to being away from physical contact for so long?_

His breath hitched loudly when Voldemort dug his nails into thigh, the delicious pressure making his spine tingle.

_Could making the horcrux have done something? Could it be why this didn’t feel wrong? Was it the reason why the idea of Voldemort touching me did not seem as repulsive as it should?_

Arousal stirred low in Harry’s belly, the wrongness of the occasion doing nothing to quell the sudden need to feel more of that liquid bliss within his veins.

It felt too good, too delicious to resist.

Something screamed in the back of Harry’s head to fight, but he ignored that voice. He knew that this was _wrong_. Voldemort’s touch shouldn’t have felt as good as it did. It shouldn’t have made him want to burrow himself into the man’s touch. It was wrong, so very _bloody_ wrong. He couldn’t have been more aware of it if he tried.

But it just felt so good to touch the Dark Lord, it was amazing. It was better than the cold of _nothingness_. It was better than sitting in isolation for days on end, to the heart-wrenching agony of his soul coming apart.

It made him feel _alive_. It was the closest to life that he had come in months, or even years.

Harry did not know how long he’d been trapped, but he couldn’t resist.

And Harry tried, _M_ _erlin_ , did he to resist; tried to remember just what Voldemort had done to his friends, had done to _him_ —

Harry was ripped from his thoughts when Voldemort’s other hand caught his left leg and suddenly pulled, tugging the limb up until both of his legs were splayed open and dangling on either side of Voldemort’s thin waist.

The man’s eyes burning into his face like a pyre. Voldemort’s stare was like a physical touch, like the man was oozing into his flesh and burrowing deep into the marrow of his bones. Harry tried not to blush beneath the weight of it.

Jolts of desire traveled up his spine. Harry did not dare move, lest he lose himself to the heat swirling within the almost violent red of Voldemort’s eyes. It made him ache to feel Voldemort’s mouth of his neck, to feel the Dark Lord’s jagged teeth biting in and spraying his own blood on the silken sheets beneath his back…

Harry was afraid for himself, afraid of just how much he _wanted_ Voldemort in that moment.

But Voldemort just looked so hungry, his gaze did something to him that Harry could do little to resist. The Dark Lord’s self-restraint was careening out of control, and it did not dampen Harry’s desire in the least.

Against his better judgment, it thrilled Harry. More than it had the right to.

The violent promise in Voldemort’s gaze should have been _terrifying_ , it should have snapped Harry straight from his senses even with isolation weighing heavily on his soul.

But it didn’t.

_Not when there was lust swirling in the dense sea of violent delight in those crimson irises..._

There was no mistaking what it was. It was lust, not hunger for blood and terror. Not bloodlust, a thirst for the thick, sticky spray of blood splattering out from a torn throat.

It was _lust._

Voldemort _wanted_ him.

Harry had seen that expression in a multitude of occasions. Aware, always, of what it was like to be desired. Knowing, but never quite understanding _why_ people desired.

But Harry knew it now. Knew what lust felt like, knew that it tasted like the sweetest candy on the back of his tongue as Voldemort’s nails cut into his trousers, slicing into skin and making him _bleed._

 _Yes_ …

Harry’s spine bowed again, eyes glazing over from the heavenly mixture of pain and bliss blooming beneath his tan skin. From the vision of Voldemort’s bright eyes taking him in, drinking in the way he writhed beneath his hands without hesitation.

It was sick, but Harry could only gasp when Voldemort’s thin pupils dilated.

It should have frightened him, should have terrified him that Voldemort wanted him in this way. But it didn’t. In that moment he could have been set on fire, his skin flayed and beaten, and he would not have noticed that at all.

Harry was looking at a predator, and he wanted nothing more than to dance within its embrace in the hopes that it would bite him.

If only to feel the serpent’s poison run through his veins, or to feel more and more of Voldemort’s fingers pressed into his skin, carving into him like an artist did to marble.

... _Please wake up_ , a more rational, desperate voice said.

Harry was no longer listening, not when Voldemort made his insides heat up with just the curve of his lips, and dark promises swirling in his eyes.

... _Wake up, Harry, wake up!_

Suddenly, Harry saw white, his senses returning to him for a second at the loud shout. As if he’d been pulled from a deep sleep.

He could see Voldemort, eyes brilliant even as Harry tried to make sense of what was _happening_ to him, to _them._ To realize that the want burning in his stomach, the feeling tugging at his insides did not come from within him, but from somewhere else...

It was not him. Not really.

This want was not his. It was foreign. An invasive presence that hissed and slithered in the back of his head. It blended seamlessly with his thoughts, melting into the gaps between his spine as though it had been there all along.

Harry hadn’t noticed it at all, consumed by the pleasant buzz that still bubbled millimeters beneath his skin. The presence was familiar, reminding him instantly of a boy Harry had once known. A teen he had once seen through the misty edges of a memory long past...

“What is this?” Harry asked, voice slurred and breathy as his legs closed automatically around the man’s hips, ankles crossing to bring the man closer in spite the screaming in the back of his head begging him to reconsider.

 _This was wrong..._ a voice murmured in his head, but it was a faint trickle in the back of his Harry’s mind. A ghostly sigh that was quickly swept away by a visceral need to touch the Dark Lord.

The voice was nothing compared to the tell-tale pressure of the Dark Lord’s own desire against his own. It didn't stand a chance to the sibilant voice within his head urging him to give in, to simply _feel._

“W-what did you do?” Harry asked, his words a gasp, when something hard brushed against his own cock.

He was unsure of when it was that he’d hardened, unsure of when his skin had once again began to burn with cloying need. His pulse thrummed rapidly as he pressed closer, bringing the man’s groin nearer to his own despite the two diverging interests in his head.

 _This is wrong..._ that familiar whisper insisted, but Harry was no longer listening. The sound was drowned out by his loud moan when Voldemort twisted his hips to force their cocks nearer, when he dug his erection more firmly against his through the inseam of his trousers.

Harry’s cock swell from the attention, the friction making his fingers spasm from the pleasure.

_Yes._

It felt _amazing_. It felt _delicious_. Like Harry might die if he did not feel the man’s fingers against him...or inside him, even.

He didn’t know what it was that he wanted, what it was that the strange hissing in the back of his mind was urging him to do.

But Harry wanted this, more than he wanted freedom, more than he wanted to _remember_ what Voldemort had done.

“.. _.And either must die by the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…”_ Voldemort said, seemingly ignoring Harry’s desperate squirmed to splay one hand right at the center of Harry’s chest.

Could Voldemort feel just how fast his heart was beating? Could he perceive the heat and want rushing through Harry’s blood? It was suffocating, in a way. As if Harry could not breathe unless Voldemort first breathed air into him, could not live unless the Dark Lord grazed his bare skin with his sharp nails first...

It was maddening.

Then Harry flinched when those nails dug harder into his chest. A sharp sensation exploding from an unknown point below his sternum as nail cut through cotton and stabbed shallowly into the flesh underneath.

_Why was this so—?_

“What I-is the meaning of this?” Harry demanded weakly. “What did you _do_?”

Eyes fluttering, a whine was ripped out of him when Voldemort’s hand moved downward, cutting through the fabric like a curse slicing through skin, like a sharp knife slicing through meat.

His shirt ripped easily, the cotton giving little resistance as Voldemort’s hand moved...stopping just shy of where Harry’s trousers began.

Harry’s stomach quivered beneath the man’s stare as the serpentine gaze shifted away from his half-lidded eyes to focus on the newly revealed skin.

“... _Half of your soul now rests within me. A writhing pitiful thing squirming in the dark...wanting nothing more than to be free,”_ Voldemort purred with a wide grin.

Voldemort’s sharp teeth flashed, the malevolence in his expression enough to silence the desirous whispers murmuring in the back of Harry’s mind, and cut through the want making his cock twinge.

“What?” Harry croaked, his face growing pale.

_Voldemort had—_

Harry was shocked, completely stumped. He had not expected that Voldemort to willingly trap Harry’s soul within his own ribs, that he would ever contemplate strengthening the bond that existed between them.

It was unreal. Why would the Dark Lord _do_ something like that?

“ _You cannot die so long as I live, and I cannot die so long as you live. Death will never reach us, Fate will never separate us...you and I are forever…immortal”_

Harry gasped when the bed dipped by the left side of head, unsure of when Voldemort had pressed his hand against the mattress. The distance between their bodies lessened with each passing second.

“ _You will never be alone...just as you wished.”_

Something warm curled in Harry’s belly at the words, like rich chocolate on a wet tongue. It was _need_. It was the press of soft sheets on naked flesh, of the hot sun on cold cheeks...it was compelling Harry to bring Voldemort closer; to bridge the gap between their bodies.

The sultry murmur urged Harry to move, to give in to the temptation the Dark Lord presented.

Harry’s fingers itched to curl around the man’s shoulders, to dig his blunt nails in and never let go. It was a soft hiss, a seductive whisper that promised him pleasure if he did, if he would just let himself fall...

It was intoxicating, a temptation he didn’t want to resist. And Harry let himself sink, his mind dulled by the foreign rush of want.

He wanted to feel Voldemort’s skin, to curl inside and lessen the void that now seemed so wide and oppressive. The void that writhed like frightened serpents, like a squirm of eels right at the center of his chest.

The void was _alive_ , and Harry wanted nothing more than to seal it shut.

A want that defied all reason. A hunger that made his jaws ache. A desire that stirred and thrashed like a living thing. It was as though there was something else present in his mind, as if slipping inside Voldemort’s skin was the only way to make him _whole._

Harry could feel it like a stone sitting at the bottom of one’s belly.

It was infuriating, the way that whisper in the back of his mind still continued to beg him to touch, and give in. The way that presence cooed and tantalized, in spite of how viciously Harry’s mind tried to rebel.

_Merlin...what did I let him do to?_

Voldemort leaned in, his red eyes growing nearer and nearer.

Harry could only watch, unable to do anything else. His limbs were trembling, his heart beating too fast for him to keep track of the rush of blood coursing through his veins.

But there was no fear. There was none of the familiar twist of fright and horror that came with Voldemort backing him into a corner. None of the emotions that _should_ have exploded within his chest. No, this was not fear.

It was _excitement._

Harry was excited that the Dark Lord was invading his personal space.

He should have been alarmed, but he felt none of that familiar anxiousness.

And that was, Harry decided, perhaps the worst thing of all.

Instead of the familiar feeling of trepidation that came with Voldemort’s presence, instead of the reluctant relief that settled deep into his bones when the Dark Lord entered his room after long periods of isolation...his senses were twisting with _happiness_. It reminded him of serpents tumbling in the grass giving chase, and of a rat caught in a wide maw before being swallowed.

Harry did not know why felt he felt this way, where the abrupt change arose from? But when Voldemort’s fingers slipped inside the waistband of his trousers, and those very fingers slid over the top of his boxers, Harry could not stop himself from jerking upwards with a pleased hiss.

 His toes curled with pleasure, the touch _divine_ even as his own mind screamed.

_This is wrong!_

Wiggling, his toes curled and uncurled in response to the warmth that spread from the brush of Voldemort’s hand over his clothed groin, the thick material a poor barrier from the man’s hand. Harry was more aware of that touch than he was of his own breathing or of his own prick stiffening in his pants with arousal.

There was an open door between them, and Harry did not know how to close it. Did not know if he even wanted to close it when it felt like—

Harry tried to speak through the haze settling across his vision, but he was stopped when Voldemort suddenly began to undo his trousers, the button slipping open before he unzipped Harry’s fly.

 _  
_ “T-this isn’t—

_“Lie.”_

__  
Harry moaned when Voldemort’s hand slid inside his pants to palm at his stiff prick, his thumb rubbing softly against his slit with surprising ease. Harry canted his hips, chasing after the warmth in the man’s palm.  
  
It was bliss and hell in one. The fact that it was Voldemort touching him, bringing him pleasure rather than pain for once was too much even for him to handle. __  
  
“Look at how much you want this...you can hardly contain yourself.”

He wanted to deny it. It simply was not possible that he could want Voldemort in this way—that this craving he felt was directed at _him_ of all people. It was sick and twisted, the way Voldemort kneaded him through his underwear and Harry groaned, breath hitching with each deft twist of Voldemort’s wrist.

“ _S-shut up…”_ Harry hissed in parseltongue.

The desperation in his tone melted into a sweet whimper when Voldemort’s grip tightened and he began stroking his cock, his thumb circling around his head before digging into his leaking hole.

Harry moaned, and grasped tightly onto the man’s shoulders. The touch drove him mad, the desire to submit overwhelming as those seductive hisses whispered in his head. They dragged him deeper and deeper into that warmth.

Drowned him in this bliss.

Harry arched his back, a soft cry ripped from his lips. Voldemort hissed something unintelligible and all of his clothes vanished, the familiar cotton of his shirt and the rough texture of his jeans evaporating like the smoke of a Patronus circling and running through the dark.

Gooseflesh broke out along his exposed skin. Harry shuddered when he glanced down and saw swollen flesh between his legs...his cock rosy and dripping with precum from the feeling of Voldemort’s fingers on his prick.

Harry flushed red with embarrassment, and he turned his attention to the window on the opposite end. Unable to bear the sight, unwilling to acknowledge the fact that he was _naked_ in his bed with the Dark Lord between his thighs.

“... _Your skin is rosy with your desire, dearest Harry. Why deny yourself when your Lord can provide you with more, when your soul cries to be one with mine?”_

Harry could not speak when Voldemort’s bare hand began to tug at his cock with firm and even twists, a helpless moan escaping his lips from the touch.

And that was when Harry, again, caught sight of Bitsy.

Bitsy’s severed head was only a short distance away, behind the massive size of the Dark Lord.

Then the horror and lust began tearing him apart at the seams, and he wanted nothing more than to cry from the horrifying sight of those bleak, vacant eyes…

 _Noyesnoyesnoyes_ —

The answers cycled into one another, Harry’s hips helplessly bucking into the Dark Lord’s hands as tears blurred his vision, threatening to run down his cheeks.

_“You want this Harry Potter...Clear your mind of those baseless thoughts in your head…”_

Harry could not abide that. There was no way he was going to ignore the fact that there was a severed head staring at him as he slowly came apart from the feeling of Voldemort’s fingers on his cock. Need and desire were driving him mad, burning and dying all at once for more of that delicious friction.

When Voldemort’s thumb dug into his cock, his vision swam with want. When that wet palm squeezed him like a vice, his spine shuddered with hunger. When Voldemort’s hand shot out to grip his chin before wrenching his eyes away from those Bitsy’s eyes, Harry keened from the bruising hold.

Harry drowned in the gleaming red swimming in Voldemort’s eyes. His horror of Bitsy became forgotten, overridden by the sudden rush of lust inflaming his senses.

_This is wrong...this is wrong...this is wrong…_

Yet Harry sank deeper into that pleasurable haze, and he fell further into the passion with each wet squelch that came from between his legs. Voldemort pumped his prick, pace unwavering as he did, and Harry felt himself creep steadily closer and closer to orgasm, so caught in the web the Dark Lord had woven so meticulously.

“ _Let go…”_ Voldemort crooned.

Harry nearly came from the sound.

The breathless hiss, the dip of the Dark Lord’s voice making his cock twitch within the man’s relentless grip.

It sounded so _good_. The promises in the man’s eyes, the unspoken words between the spaces decadent even as Harry’s own mind rebelled.

Even as rationality urged him to _remember_ just who this was—to recall what Voldemort had made him do, what he had forced him to experience from the moment he’d fallen into the man’s suffocating hold.

 _But this feels so lovely, does it not?_ A dark, sibilant voice said in his head. Like static, and the electronic utterances of a man speaking through an old radio. _Do you not want your suffering to end? For this pleasure to remain endless…_

_For your mind to be at peace?_

Harry shook his head, unsure if he was agreeing or disagreeing when Voldemort suddenly stopped. He whined in protest at the loss of that delicious friction, of the arousing curl of the man’s fingers as they pumped him nearer to completion.

Then, Voldemort pressed closer, his dark robes tickling at Harry’s exposed skin to press his lips near his ear. His hot breath tickled the shell of Harry’s ear, and wafted against the sensitive skin at the side of his neck each time the Dark Lord exhaled along his throat.

Voldemort was like a predator. Like he were rearing up to dig his jaws into his neck, to pierce his jagged teeth inside and bleed Harry out in the middle of his bed.

And then Voldemort laughed.

Adrenaline shot up his spine, the vibrations emanating from Voldemort’s lips making his skin tingle.

 _Voldemort is too close..._ a more rational voice said, indignation and disgust thick in its tone. But Harry did not feel disgusted. He barely spared a thought to it when it sounded so far away, like the echo of a dying breath.

Yet, the voice persisted, desperate for Harry to see reason, to _understand_ just how close to death Harry neared, and how little he resisted.

_He’s a monster...he’s a killer._

Harry knew all this.

It was shameful.—he knew that better than anyone, better than the voice repeating the word over and over in his head. But it grew more and more difficult to ignore the burning connection...to stop himself from chasing after the promises in Voldemort’s voice and in his teasing touches.

Then another voice, a much louder, glass-like one laughed breathily into his head. It cut through his resistance with surprising ease.

_Always chasing after death even when you cannot die..._

Its tongue was deadlier than even Voldemort’s nails or a werewolf’s fangs as its amusement sliced through the many excuses in his head.

 _Always running from your own wants,_ the voice murmured, _Always running from your own monsters..._

_Let it catch you, little lion...No one will ever know._

Under the twin pressures of that voice and Voldemort’s hold on his prick, Harry’s resolve crumbled.

He was too stuck on the feeling of Voldemort’s robes grazing his quaking belly and shivering chest, too excited by the breaths fanning against his neck to fight back.

“ _Give in…”_ Voldemort whispered.

His lips teased Harry’s his ear as he spoke. Silencing the doubts, the horrors that swam in the back of his mind, easily when there was no way to fight the hold Voldemort had on his soul.

_Let yourself sink._

Harry’s hips jerked at the sultry sound of Voldemort’s voice, unable to resist the feeling of that thumb teasing at him so gently that it hurt. The want in his belly had become monstrous. A twisting, ugly thing. A voracious jaw that threatened to swallow him completely.

 _Let it devour you, Harry..._ the voice moaned in his head.

He could feel the tattered remains of his own soul begging for the contact, for a chance to bridge the gap between them, and it was wrong that he felt the way he did. The gap was only a short distance, perhaps a hand’s width away, but it could have been a chasm. It could have been kilometers, even.

The space was too wide, too large.

Harry broke.


	5. Fester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every single tag I have included applies to this chapter. Please review them all. I will not repeat the list here.
> 
> This story is not a happy one. The graphic contents that shall follow will not be pleasant. 
> 
> Read on to your own peril. I suggest you have a drink paired with this reading as well.
> 
> If you...enjoyed this chapter, please leave me a comment.

“...Please,” Harry hissed, cheeks streaming with dried tears. 

The words were too heavy on his tongue. Foreign and strange to his own ears because he could not believe what it was that he was asking, what it was he was even considering.

What would others say? Merlin. What would others think of him for agreeing to this?

Harry was ashamed, the weight of that ‘please’ almost too much for him to bear. His skin burned and his insides fluttered like the rapid beats of a hummingbird’s wings. His body was screaming and he could no ignore it any longer. He was certain he might go mad. He was certain he might just die if he didn’t sate this hunger drying up his throat.

But there was just no fighting that voice. Not when his will to fight had been snuffed so easily by the promise of satisfaction in Voldemort’s touch.

The Dark Lord grinned into his neck, and Harry jerked. His eyes fluttering shut when those lips tickled his ear and smoothed over the sensitive flesh.

And then a long, serpentine tongue unexpectedly licked at the shell.

A shiver crawled up Harry’s spine in response. His hands dug more firmly into the mattress as Voldemort’s jagged teeth closed around the hollow of his ear, his hot mouth making Harry’s nerves scream from the contact.

“Your Lord shall oblige you...this once,” Voldemort murmured into the skin before pulling away.

Harry protested from the loss, his hands reaching for the Dark Lord unthinkingly to drag the man’s head back down, but Voldemort gave him no chance.

Voldemort suddenly squeezed his cock, his grip so tight that it bordered on painful, and Harry cried out. His toes curled, and his arms fell back to fist on the bed sheets to ground himself. The violence and pain were as delicious as they were disorienting.

Harry writhed when Voldemort began to pump his cock, settling for a bruising pace. He bit his lip until it bled, twisting beneath the man’s grip. Each time Voldemort stroked him, each time Voldemort came right back up the base, his thumb played with Harry's slit and it nearly splintered what little sanity Harry had.

Harry couldn’t take it—even as his blood practically screamed for more, even as that sultry voice murmured that this was heaven—it was just too much stimulation.

Harry scrambled.“W-wait!” 

His hands pressed onto Voldemort’s shoulders for purchase, to get the man to stop for just one bloody second, because—

Harry didn’t know why he wanted the man to stop. He couldn’t precisely define what it was about the heat flooding through his veins like molten lava that made him want to scream. But he needed Voldemort to stop, and slow down.  He needed Voldemort to give him a second to breathe because there was a pressure building low in his belly, like a dormant volcano waiting to erupt.

The man toyed with him mercilessly, his thumb pressing more firmly against his slit, the sticky wetness of Voldemort’s fingers making Harry’s spine bend. A delicious jolt of heat rushed up his spine with each deft twirl of his wrist, and Harry didn’t know where the pleasure ended and the pain began.

His world spun, his stomach lurched, and Harry was certain he might break.

“S-slow down!”

Voldemort did no such thing.

Instead, the man’s tongue swiped along his throat, leaving a burning trail from Harry’s ear down to his neck. It was a soft touch, a gentle pressure that threw Harry’s mind into a frenzy.

He expected violence. He expected to be savaged. Consumed.

This was everything but.

Nothing could have prepared Harry for this. For the surprising reverence in the way Voldemort’s lips kissed and sucked at his throat.

Harry moaned when Voldemort’s forked tongue licked at a sensitive point on the juncture between his neck and shoulder. The Dark Lord’s mouth sucked along his pulse point, pulling more and more erotic sounds from Harry’s lips.

Harry knew that it shouldn't have made him feel alive, but it did.

He found himself less and less resistant to the idea of rebelling the more Voldemort touched him. The ecstasy overshadowed the hesitation, and the thought of stopping Voldemort at all was much too far away,

Voldemort sank his teeth into his neck.

And Harry threw his head back, unwittingly baring more of his throat to Voldemort’s eager mouth. It was shocking; how pleasurable Voldemort’s teeth were. How delicious Voldemort’s mouth was on his skin. It was the only thing Harry could think of as the Dark Lord jerked him steadily closer to climax.

It was...more than Harry could have ever anticipated.

“I am done waiting, Harry,” Voldemort murmured into his skin between nips, his hot tongue laving at the smarted flesh, before biting down, hard.

Harry groaned, eyes slipping shut. Desire rushed and pulsed through his veins. The sound was like an explosion in the room, unmistakable even as Harry lost himself to the bliss. It was a shock that something so painful could feel that good, that his cock could harden further from something so depraved.

Harry would never have pegged himself as a masochist.

But he was slowly realizing that he didn’t know himself at all. There was more about his own needs, about himself, that he never bothered to learn. Things that he could never have learned while on the run.

It drove him mad to know that this was what he’d become. He was a living conduit of desire, a burning maw that wanted so much  _ more.  _ Voldemort’s lips pressed against his throat in tandem with the tight schlick of his fingers on his cock, and Harry was lost to it all. 

“I-I-ah!”

Harry was rendered speechless. His mind emptied completely of thought when Voldemort increased his pace, when Voldemort dug his sharp nail into his slit—the agony making his back arch back again.

It was the only warning Harry had before his cock swelled, and his mind exploded with ecstasy. He came harder than he ever had in his life. His body convulsed from the intensity, his mouth parting into a scream as Voldemort continued to stroke him through it. The pressure of his hand was unyielding. Teeth practically chewed on his flesh.

And that nail.

_ Merlin, help me. _

Voldemort pushed it deeper.

Harry’s body spasmed as more of that warmth splattered over his stomach. The sound of his cum smearing along his stomach and Voldemort stroking him through his orgasm made Harry flush brightly. It was perverse and filthy. Each wet wrench was a reminder of just how far he had fallen.

“Did the pain excite you, my horcrux?” Voldemort said after releasing Harry’s neck. 

Voldemort’s hand was still jerking and twisting Harry’s prick. The pleasure bordered on uncomfortable, his cock oversensitive after his orgasm.

Harry whined.

“Always so full of surprises,” Voldemort purred, before raising his head to look into Harry’s eyes. 

Harry didn't know what the man was looking for. What more could Voldemort want from him now that he had reached completion?

But the man’s question was the least of Harry's concerns. Aftershocks wracked through him. Harry’s skin was hot to the touch, as though it was about to melt off from his very bones. His mind was utter mush, and his thoughts were difficult to hold onto. 

_ That was— _

But Harry was given no time to think, no time to truly consider what was happening before Voldemort was tugging him closer. His hand hiked Harry’s right leg over Voldemort's hip before Voldemort whispered something unintelligible underneath his breath.

Something pressed against his arsehole, and Harry gasped. A something that was wet and smooth, that rubbed the skin gently.

Something that was oddly like fingers.

“What do you think you’re doing!? Harry choked, shocked.

Embarrassment burnt his cheeks bright red, the haze of his exhaustion unable to curb the sudden shame that settled in his chest at the way his heart raced when Voldemort only smiled in response.

The man’s expression was  _ frightening. _

“Did you think we were done, dearest Harry?”

Harry flinched from the clear amusement in the man’s tone. His eyes shot up to catch the mischief swirling in Voldemort’s eyes. It was like a beacon of light. Bright and glaring even as he tried to make sense of his intentions.

Like why the Dark Lord looked pleased by something as odd as this.

It was vulgar. Depraved and so bloody strange.

The complete opposite of what Harry had expected from the Dark Lord.

But then again, none of what happened earlier was any more predictable than that finger prodding at his arse.

Nothing made sense. Not anymore. Not since the strange, nearly nauseating need for the man commenced. Not since he had killed Bitsy, and got off to the feeling of Voldemort's fingers on his cock.

This was  _ sick _ .

“We are  _ far _ from finished.” 

Harry cried out in shock when the finger pressed inside, before groaning when it began rubbing his insides raw.

The intrusion uncomfortable as Voldemort’s finger pushed in as deeply as it could go, the slickness doing nothing to abate the burn.

“W-wai—ah!”

Harry could barely think when a second finger pushed through nearly a minute after the first. It was far from gentle, the touch bordering on desperate and malicious as it curled and scissored as if they were looking for something.

Harry just wanted him to take it out. This was nothing like the warmth of Voldemort's palm on his cock stroking him to completion. It wasn’t the all-consuming heat depriving him of his rationality—a freefall into a kaleidoscope of color when those fingers teased along the sensitive flesh. This was something else.

Something shameful.

He was ashamed of the fact that the Dark Lord was thrusting fingers into a place he shit from. It was gross. A place he hardly ever thought about except when he was wiping his arse after using the bathroom. And he was embarrassed by the pitiful sounds Voldemort tore from his lips each time he spread his fingers, stretching him beyond reason, before pushing in deeper.

Harry squirmed within the magical bonds as strange, familiar murmur began to whisper in his head. It was sweet as honey, dripping with promises of pleasure if he let himself relax.

But Harry couldn’t. The way Voldemort was staring at him did nothing to settle his restlessness.

“T-this is wrong,” Harry said, voice shaking. “This is wrong! Why are your fingers in my—my—”

Harry couldn’t finish the sentence, the word “arsehole” unable to pass through lips.

He didn’t want to say it. How could he when everything about this was just  _ wrong _ ? Not that any of what he had done already wasn’t. But this was  _ dirty _ . This was far more intrusive and humiliating than having his cock played with.

This was far worse than having Voldemort’s teeth on his neck and his hand on his prick, than that very hand giving him the most mind-blowing orgasm of his life. When Voldemort touched him, it was an inferno that consumed him. Nothing like the lazy release he would often reach back in Hogwarts. 

That had easily been the most mind-shattering experience Harry had ever been at the receiving end of. 

And this intimacy. Harry did not expect it either. It made him…

_ Vulnerable _ . As if he were revealing something that no one, not even his friends, had been privy to. He had already done enough by spilling over the man’s hand; it should have been enough embarrassment for one evening.

That wasn’t the case at all. Just when Harry had assumed that they were done, that he had repaid his part of the bargain, Voldemort wanted more. If the glint in Voldemort’s eye was anything to go by, he was far from finished. Harry had a feeling that he would not be satisfied until Harry crumbled beneath him.

He wanted nothing more than to rest, He also wanted time. Time to come to terms with just what he had done, what he had permitted the Dark Lord to do. And the Dark Lord refused to give him even this.

_ Why? _

Then Voldemort’s fingers plunged in deep, and Harry moaned. Slippery and wet sounds erupted with each deft motion of Voldemort’s fingers. Each thrust, the way each digit prodded and rubbed at the tender skin, was enough to eclipse the humiliation writhing inside his gut.

Harry shuddered, his spine tingling.

Lubricant dribbled down from between his quivering legs, the sensation ticklish as he tried to squirm from out of the uncomfortable position Voldemort had forced him into. But all of Harry’s efforts to close his legs failed.

Suddenly, Voldemort’s fingers suddenly curled inside him, and Harry cried out, his world exploding into a kaleidoscope of color.

_ What..? _

_ What was that? _

The sensation was incomprehensible. What had Voldemort done to make him jerk on the bed?

“There it is,” Voldemort mused.

_ Where was what? _ Harry wanted to ask, but couldn't, when Voldemort curled his fingers once more.

A delicious jolt of ecstasy pulsed within him. Intense and endless as Voldemort continued to prod at that spot relentlessly. His lips stretched into a wider grin when Harry was unable to contain his pleased mewls.

There was nothing keeping him grounded. Outside, Harry’s fingers clenched into tight fists, but inside, he was free-falling, as though he were in mid-flight rather than pressing closer to the Dark Lord's body—

Voldemort forced a third finger inside.

A scream tore out of his throat. His stomach jumped.

It was too much.

He was splitting at the seams. He was going to come apart at any moment’s notice. Like drowning in the lake, but without the fear and the endless cold that came with black waters forcing its way down his throat.

Voldemort shifted his fingers inside to ram into that strange spot continuously, and Harry cried out again. His cries were louder, sweeter, unrecognizable to his own ears.

They were unlike any sounds he’d ever made before. Like it was someone else and not Harry screaming his throat hoarse.

His cheeks flushed, and his eyes burned. The threat of tears became more and more real as the pleasure escalated, his cock unbearably swollen despite having cum so explosively earlier. It jutted out, his slit now oozing pre-cum all over his quivering belly.

“I-it’s too mu—ah!” Harry moaned.

He bucked his hips, attempting to squirm away once again. 

“Are you sure, my horcrux?” Voldemort asked. His voice cut through the haze blanketing Harry’s mind like a hot blade to butter, but it did nothing to calm the rapid racing of his heart. “Your mouth says one thing, but your body tells me something else entirely.”

Pleasure fragmented his mind. The reasons for resisting, becoming more and more difficult to hold onto with each passing second.

“Look at how easily you take me, at how each time I do this—” 

Voldemort stabbed that spot inside him, and Harry screamed. This time he shed tears from the intensity. 

“—you clench so tightly around my fingers.”

Harry sobbed when Voldemort continued to push into that nerve. When Voldemort added a fourth finger inside without trouble at all, it slipped inside easily, aided by the slickness of his cum. 

Then, the stretch suddenly easier to bear and his mind sank deeper into that croon purring in the back of his head.

_ Why fight when you can give in, Harry? Fighting has only ever exacerbated your suffering, has only prolonged the inevitable.  _

The words were seductive and the voice, a purr.  The sound was like melted chocolate as it slipped between the gaps of his spine and settled deep into the marrow of his bones.

The voice was not wrong. Harry knew this better than anyone else. Fighting had only ever led to trouble. To death. His hope that he could one day escape, that he could one day defeat Lord Voldemort, was what had his friends killed.

All he had was Voldemort and everything he could provide. Whether it was pleasure or pain, Harry would take it.

_ Yes _ , the voice crooned, tone warm and gentle.  _ And he will give you everything...pain and pleasure beyond your wildest dreams. You will never be empty...never be alone.. _ .

Harry splintered. His weak hiss of defiance withered into pleased moans when Voldemort’s finger ground against his insides repeatedly and sent his head spinning.

_ Yes. _

Harry wanted it all.

Voldemort’s finger pushed in and out of his fluttering hole, and Harry’s muscles clamped tightly on those long fingers.

Brutal; without any hesitation.

“Does it not feel good, Harry?” Voldemort asked. 

The heat in the man’s voice made Harry’s stomach jolt pleasantly. His pulse thrummed in sync with the drag of those fingers.

“Can you truly deny just how much you enjoy this?”

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but Voldemort forced a fifth digit inside, and Harry yowled.

But not in pain.

Harry threw his head back, fingers digging hard into Voldemort's shoulders as he fucked himself on Voldemort’s fingers. As he thrust his hips up to swallow more of what Voldemort had to offer.

It unravelled him, the pressure of those fingers digging into his insides The wide stretch of his arse taking more and more than was possible. 

It was filthy and yet—

Harry couldn't find it within himself to care. It was delicious.

He wanted more. So much more than what Voldemort was giving him at that moment.

Harry gasped, voice so high that he wondered idly if that was really his voice. "More."

Was really Harry begging for the Dark Lord to tear him open? Was he really asking him to fill the emptiness inside Harry that constantly hungered for more? 

Harry hardly registered Voldemort's laugh, barely caught the twisted grin of the man's lips, when the Dark Lord ripped his fingers from Harry's quivering hole, tearing a protest from Harry's throat.

He clawed on Voldemort's shoulders as if in a frenzy, unable to bear the way his muscles contracted around air, empty.

Harry couldn't stand it, couldn't bear it. He wanted to be filled. He needed to be consumed. He was empty and he needed to be made whole.

But before he could whine, before hot tears could run down his cheeks, Voldemort’s robes slid along his naked thighs.

Harry stopped, his stomach twisting into knots with anticipation. Voldemort hadn't left him, after all. He would finish what he started.

Harry shot a glance at the man’s hips, where the source of the rustling emanated from, and excitement curled warmly within his skin.

Voldemort had reached inside his robes, and, in an almost dramatic fashion, the Dark Lord unveiled, not one, but two cocks from the billowy material.    


They were thick and wet, the heads glistening brightly with pre-cum oozing from the tips. They were massive; Voldemort’s thin, spidery fingers were like twigs compared to his cocks' girths and lengths.

It wasn’t just the size of those pricks that struck him dumb or the fact that there were two erections rather than one jutting out proudly from the opening in Voldemort’s robes. No, it was the fact that Voldemort’s pricks were nothing like his own cock. Or any, if Harry were being honest. Even if he had only seen his own, Harry was sure that regular cocks were nothing like what Voldemort sported between his legs.

Where Harry’s was smooth, the head blunt and rosy with blood, Voldemort’s were barbed and pale. As if all the blood had been drained from the flesh.

Harry shuddered, unable to rip his gaze away.

There were scales along the sides, the skin shining a pale, greenish blue beneath the light above their heads. It had ridges in places where Harry’s prick only had veins. And where his own cock was smooth flesh Voldemort’s had spikes protruding from the skin.

It was obscene. Debauched.

Instead of frightening him, it mustered fascination.

A twisted excitement swelled around him. So much that it threatened to choke him. It was like the coming destruction of a train heading for a collision course into a brick wall, and Harry wanted nothing more than to be crushed.

Torn open and ripped apart by Voldemort's desire, just for the thrill of being whole. Voldemort had promised, and Harry would take Voldemort anyway he wanted if it meant never being empty again.

Harry shuddered when one of Voldemort’s hands—palm wet and glistening with moisture— wrapped around both cocks to smear his pre-cum and that clear viscous substance around his flesh.  Harry tried not to wince at the loud squelching that echoed in the silent room.

And the Dark Lord stepped closer, pushing his thighs more firmly against Harry’s legs.

Adrenaline shot up Harry’s spine. Delight and something else whispered in the back of his mind.

Harry tried to move his arms, and push closer to the heat burning into the back of his thighs, but then, with a low murmur from between Voldemort’s lips, his arms were forced above his head. He tried to fight against the invisible bonds, but there was nowhere for him to go. He was helpless, naked and bound on his own bed with a Dark Lord between his legs, playing with his own pricks.

And, in some sick, twisted way, Harry enjoyed this—gratified in the way the Dark Lord touched him. He was ignoring the voice screaming for him to see reason, to struggle against the hunger making his vision flicker. His insides were curling pleasantly at the promise of pleasure in Voldemort’s eyes and he couldn't fight it.

Voldemort was not normal, that there was nothing reasonable about the sticky droplets dripping onto his thighs each time Voldemort fisted his cocks in one of his hands, or in the way the rivulets drizzled over his quivering skin.

This was...delicious.

And so very wrong.

Harry did not know what to think, what to do, because Voldemort could not intend to—

_ But what other reason would Voldemort have played with your arse, Harry? For what other reason would he be playing with your prick? _ A voice said in his head, and Harry’s cheeks burned with embarrassment and sudden shyness.

_ Did he? _

Harry banished the thought as quickly as it came. There was only one explanation. If Harry was reading this situation correctly, if what that rational voice was screaming in his head was right, then—

Voldemort planned to fuck him with those two cocks.

Even if there was no other explanation, if there was no other reason for why Voldemort was pressing closer to rub both of those pricks against his wet crack, Harry, even as aroused as he was, could not fathom it. Because Voldemort couldn’t possibly fit them both inside him, could he?

There was simply no way something so monstrous could fit inside without hurting him or without causing him extreme pain somehow. And as exciting, as thrilling as the promise of pain was, Harry wasn't sure he was willing to go that far.

_ Naive, so naive. Are you not curious to know just how it will feel? _ Purred that seductive voice, its tone thick and deep as pleasure began to unravel beneath his skin. 

It was suffocating, the way it lapped at him, teased at his senses, and how it robbed him of all his resistance.

It was if he’d possessed. By someone who distorted his view--by someone who was like Voldemort, a monster wound around his heart, but wasn’t.

Harry trembled when the cocks rocked against his arse—similar to how Voldemort’s fingers had played with his hole before. The sensation was both repulsive and exhilarating as his stomach clenched.

Voldemort’s eyes flashed dangerously and the spiked head of one cock pushed against Harry. It was the merest of touches, nothing compared to the brutal way Voldemort’s fingers had been fucking into him earlier, but it was enough to snap him out of his senses

“No!” Harry shouted, suddenly afraid.

The Dark Lord couldn’t possibly fit that inside him, he couldn’t think to put that thing—

Voldemort snapped his hips forward, and Harry howled from the sudden intrusion. It was as if he’d been snapped in half. Those fingers twisting inside him earlier were  _ nothing _ compared to the hard, spiked flesh rubbing his insides raw.

It was agony.

It was a serrated knife spearing him through, each ridge digging into the delicate folds of his arse. And Harry couldn’t stop him. His mind clouded with the pain that engulfed him as Voldemort continued to force more and more of himself inside.

The second cock had, mercifully, not been shoved in, only rubbing against Harry’s hard prick as Voldemort moved.

But even if it was only one, it was brutal.

Harry shed tears from the pain. His teeth bit down on his bottom lip to stop himself from screaming a second time when Voldemort’s cock suddenly swelled, almost as though it had grown twice its size.

He was stuffed to capacity. This was more than even five of Voldemort’s fingers could have accomplished. And it was maddening, the way the spikes—oh Merlin, the  _ spikes _ —poked at his sensitive flesh, sharp points digging and stabbing with each bloody centimeter Voldemort forced inside.

Harry could scarcely breathe.

“Is this not what you wanted, Harry? Freedom from the nothing, from the ennui eating you alive?” Voldemort hissed, pleasure twisting his expression each time Harry inevitably clenched around him.

Harry whimpered, his throat unbearably tight. Something had lodged in his throat; a scream or a cry, Harry couldn’t be sure, and it sat right at the bottom of his throat like the heaviest of stones.

He couldn’t think of anything but the sharp points cutting into him like needles. Nothing was more important than that single point of contact.

He jumped when Voldemort’s second cock rubbed against his own leaking prick, using a hand to press their erections together.

And then, as if summoned from somewhere deep in the recesses of Harry’s mind, heat flared.

Desire, sickening, overwhelming pleasure exploded within him, unbidden and unwanted. Like the whispers in the back of his head urging him to keep going, like the need and hunger in the pit of his stomach telling him that pain was better than nothing. Better than the nightmares, better than the four walls holding him in place without the presence of anything else but his own thoughts.

Voldemort pulled back and forced himself back inside, and Harry moaned. Pain bloomed wherever the ridges caught at his flesh, but pleasure, chased after it, almost a half-second after the pain nearly crippled him.

Voldemort’s fingers tightened around their pricks and began to move. His thumb teased at Harry’ s slit in time with his thrusts. A squelching sound echoed in the room each time Voldemort pulled back and snapped his hips forward to bury his massive girth deeper.

“ _ Answer me, my Horcrux… _ ” Voldemort hissed in Parseltongue. 

The order cut through the haze for a moment. Harry blinked to focus, willing his lips to shape a comprehensible word, but each time Voldemort buried his cock inside him,  it became more difficult to speak.

He was drowning in the pleasure, suffocating in the pain. He couldn’t tell up from down or get his tongue to cooperate when only moans and gasps could seep from his mouth. His flesh had somehow caught fire—had been lit by the heat in Voldemort’s gaze and an agonizing pleasure that ripped him open.

It hurt too good for Harry to concentrate. 

Voldemort slammed his hips abruptly, nudging the same nerve that had made Harry scream earlier. 

A white light exploded in the back of his eyes, and Harry was nearly blinded by the pleasure when Voldemort, as if sensing that this was the spot that had him begging, smashed into it.

“Y—ah!” Harry cried.

The cock’s barbed tip was agony, but the way it hit that nerve, the way it kneaded his insides raw, unmade him and robbed him of all thought. 

“M-ngh,” Harry moaned between heavy breaths, eyes rolling to the back of his head. 

Voldemort picked up speed. He leaned down to bury his face in Harry’s neck and lap at his skin. 

Harry writhed beneath him, fingers clenching onto the bed sheets beneath him for dear life, hands still trapped above his head. The laving electrified him, overwhelmed him. The juxtaposition of that sweetness with the savage manner Voldemort fucked into him without mercy made it difficult to comply with Voldemort’s request.

Harry wanted this more than he could stand. To be broken apart and made anew, to be fragmented and bound together with only the jagged edges as evidence of his unmaking. 

Voldemort drew back slightly and sank his teeth into his neck, and warmth trickled down his neck and shoulder. 

It didn’t matter that this was all wrong. It would be a moot point to hate it. He was already sullied. The Dark Lord was already inside him, nestled deep in his heart. They had always been, the magic of the horcrux more binding than a marriage vow.

Harry clenched tightly around Voldemort’s cock, wanting to suck in more of the man’s cock and meld their souls more intimately together through their flesh. To fill that emptiness, to never be alone in his head. Even if this monster had been the reason for his dependence. Even if Voldemort thought him nothing more than property.

It was preferable to being alone. The pain and the pleasure, the toxic need was everything he needed.

Voldemort released a sharp breath against his neck, but Harry hardly noticed it, drowning in the agony and ecstasy that came each time Voldemort squeezed their cocks within his fist.

A cry tumbled from his lips when the Dark Lord’s sharp nail suddenly dug into his slit again. He’d never thought that this hurt could be this good. 

Harry wanted more.

Something was building inside him, the familiar heat that had ravaged him earlier when Voldemort had only teased him with his hands. It ballooned within him, the pressure tonguing at the base of his spine, tearing him open further.

It made his teeth vibrate, and his moans reverberate, the echoes of his cries enough to rattle his bones. And instead of fighting it, dreading the inevitable fall that would render him nothing more than a puppet, exhausted and delirious, he chased after the pressure. 

The high of orgasm, the kaleidoscope of color that had exploded behind his eyes, had been addicting, the best feeling in the world, and he couldn’t deny himself this. There was no reason for him to when it was  _ heaven _ . When all that he had known was that ache each time Ginny would slip through the cracks of his mind. He’d never experienced something quite like this.

There was no guilt. No point in fighting this when Voldemort was giving him exactly what he wanted, breaking him open, tearing him at the seams as he desperately desired. 

It hurt so much, but it was what he deserved. It was what he needed, and Merlin, he’d take it all. Let Voldemort drown him if it meant that he’d never be alone again. 

Harry was drawn away from his thoughts when Voldemort released his neck and traced his lips against his adam’s apple, lowering his mouth to worship his collarbones with his tongue. The tip of his tongue teased bone. A hint of teeth nipped at the flesh.

Harry’s heart raced, his insides twisted, and the pressure crushed him with the promise of its ecstasy. His toes curled, desperate for Voldemort to push him over the edge.

Godric, he needed this, he would die without it.

“ _ My poor little horcrux... _ ” Voldemort managed in between nips, voice husky and guttural as he continued to fuck him, the loud slap of his hips hitting Harry’s arse echoing in the silent room. Harry's sharp moans and loud cries the only sound cutting across the sharp slaps. 

_ Filthy boy _ , a sibilant voice sounded in his head, and Harry’s cock hardened further, stomach quivering at the way that silky sound echoed in his head.

His lips parted as Voldemort rammed into him, the back of his thighs aching with the ferocity, his body quaking. It was brutal, the way his muscles gave, how he split open on that cock.

He was so close he could taste it, and Harry could sense that Voldemort was nearing his from soft murmur in his head telling him just how good he was. How he was such a good, dirty boy for wanting something as disgusting as this. 

Harry’s blood sang, and just as he neared his climax, just as his eyes fell shut with the strength of his impending orgasm—

Everything came to an abrupt halt.

Voldemort stopped fucking him, the end of his prick no longer teasing at that pleasurable point inside him. His fingers fell away from their pricks, and his mouth unlatched from his nipple—the coldness enough to startle Harry into awareness.

A protest tumbled from his lips, a desperate sound Harry would not have recognized as his own. Frustration welled up inside him, his stomach in knots. 

He had been so close. He had been on the cusp; the promise of completion like a tantalizing meal after having being starved for so long. He could almost taste it in the back of his throat.

How dare he? How dare Voldemort take that from him?

Harry opened his eyes, tears burning fiercely at the corners. He didn’t let them fall, but he knew that Voldemort had noticed them. There was an air of smugness surrounding the man. A something that wasn’t easily discernible, not with Voldemort’s face still pressed against Harry’s chest.

How dare he push him beyond capacity and deny him something as simple as this? How dare he turn his world on its head and stop just like that?

Harry’s voice was weak and sore, breaking at the edges. “W-why?” 

It was a miracle he could even speak at all from how much he’d been screaming. He was almost a bubbling mess throughout the whole affair. It should have been no louder than a whisper, but there was just enough strength within him to get his message across.

Voldemort did not answer, only breathed warm air against his chest. He squeezed at the sheets above his head, bit on the inside of his cheek when that breath teased at his nipple, the memory of what that wet mouth had done to his nipples earlier enough to stoke the flames of lust.

Voldemort hadn’t pulled out, his presence was still bleeding into him, fucking into his senses without moving in the least. Harry didn’t know how long they lied like that. Each second passing was a reminder of how hard Harry’s cock was, and of how tantalizing Voldemort’s hard cock was in his arse. It was infinitesimally worse than if Voldemort had removed it. It left him starving and yearning. Each twitch of that prick, each time Harry shifted to try to get more of it, only made him want more.

Voldemort’s prick was monstrous in both size and shape, enough to break him open like an egg, but he needed it. If only to get off, just this once.

Harry whined when Voldemort lifted his head and his red eyes caught his own. There was something there, something Harry could not define in that second. It swirled, the crimson flashing like precious stones with amusement and...something else.

Something knowing, something hungry that made his breath catch, but not like the amusement from before, The last time the Dark Lord had sported that look, the last time Harry had seen it flash before his eyes, he had been thrust into his own mind with only Ginny for company.

“Call me your Lord, Harry. Tell me you are mine,” Voldemort said. ”Say the words and you will want for nothing. You will know pain; the kind of which your mind could not begin to imagine. You will know pleasure; bliss that will render you speechless. That will bury the fears lurking through the corners of your mind.”

Harry shuddered at the lilt of his voice.The way his eyes flashed to Harry’s trembling lips only to flicker back to his eyes, hunger plain in his gaze.

The promise was loud and clear. The implications, the price that would come with completion a heavy one, even for him to bear. 

Harry had never called him his Lord. Even as weak as he was, he had never considered it. He had called him Voldemort, had in many ways understood implicitly that he belonged to the Dark Lord after all that he’d been subjected to. 

But to voice, to admit, something like this. It was—

Harry swallowed, hesitant, even as tempted as he was. Voldemort would not lie, had never lied to him.. Sweet as honey, bitter as coffee; a man of his word even if the truth cut just as deeply as his lies. 

Harry shouldn’t concede to his whims, and he opened his mouth to say as much, but then, Voldemort shifted.

Voldemort’s cock stirred inside him, jostling his insides and the tip nudging that nerve within him, and Harry’s voice died a swift death.

His cock jumped from the zing of pleasure. Pre-cum oozed from its rosy tip, and he squirmed. 

He wanted to cum desperately, wanted more of that bliss, of that rapture. 

Lips parting, Harry shot the man a pleading look, hoping that it would be enough for Voldemort to finish what he’d started. He didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to degrade himself further. 

His dignity was all that he had left, though it was possible that he didn’t even have that either. Not when he’d come once from Voldemort’s fingers, and practically melted into the man’s touches after being torn open. 

Aching and bleeding, his insides had shifted to accommodate the Dark Lord in every way.

Voldemort did not move again, and the room fell into a thick silence, their breaths the only disruption to the peace that settled between them. 

His arse ached fiercely. No longer eclipsed by the pleasure, the sharp pangs were now more obvious than before. They could no longer hide behind the heat that tantalized his flesh and poisoned his mind.

He was more lucid than he’d ever been, and yet—

Harry ached for it. The pain couldn’t mask the emptiness inside, or sate the hunger. His cock was hard, refusing to settle.

“Unless you wish to remain unsated as you are. Forever hanging on the precipice, unable to fall, I suggest you comply,” Voldemort said.

It was the only warning Harry had before Voldemort thrust into him, ramming into his prostate once again. 

Harry screamed, vocal chords straining. Voldemort set a brutal pace, cock beating as though he were trying to break him. The pain was agonizing, furious, as it tore up his insides in a way that Voldemort hadn’t before.

His voice cracked and shattered from the violence. He should have been repulsed, horrified, and desperate for it to end. But these cries, they were not from pain. He wasn’t a sobbing mess because he wanted it to end. He didn’t choke and gurgle because he wanted his consciousness to fade. No, nothing could have prepared him for the intensity, for the crushing weight of—

_ Ecstasy _ . 

Pleasure beyond his comprehension assaulted him. It bled into him, fitted between the gaps of his spine, burrowed into his flesh like fingers gripping onto his skin. It speared him, cracked him open. He couldn’t even begin to describe the sensation.

His screams were endless. He couldn’t have stopped them if he tried. The Dark Lord fucked him like he was trying to shape Harry into his image. Forcing him near climax once again, the burn within his belly enough to make his toes curl at the promise of orgasm.

Voldemort did not touch his prick, but Harry hadn’t noticed. He was closing in. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, saliva dribbling from his chin from screaming himself hoarse.

And then, just as he neared it, just as his insides twisted, readying themselves for the explosive climax the Dark Lord had denied him earlier, Voldemort ceased all movement.

Harry screamed with frustration.

_ No. _

“I can keep you on the cusp all evening if that is what it requires,” Voldemort warned, and Harry wanted to cry. 

_ No! _

Voldemort couldn’t—he wouldn’t—

_ But he would _ , said a voice in Harry’s head. A distorted version of his own voice, sly and assessing in the way it spoke.

Dismay flared within him, the prospect of remaining unsated, of remaining empty and lusting for a climax he would never achieve, torturous. But was it enough for him to call him ‘My lord’? Could he live with himself if he did? Even after everything he had done?

“Perhaps we could have Ginevra join—”

Horror like never before seized him at the mere mention of her name. Harry didn’t hesitate to interrupt the Dark Lord before he could say more.

“I’ll d-do it!” Harry shouted, voice cracking. “I-I’m yours...my Lord.”

The words tasted like something foul in his mouth, like a creature had died in the back of his throat. But he would not face Ginny again. He refused to—not after what she had done. Voldemort had already punished him for refusing him once before.

Harry couldn’t do it again. Merlin, he’d do whatever it took. 

And if that meant calling Voldemort his...Lord, if that meant falling lower than he’d already fallen, he would. He couldn’t do this again. 

Harry turned his gaze stubbornly to the ceiling. He knew what this meant, as foul as it was, what Voldemort intended. He wanted Harry to call him my Lord as Voldemort took him.

For what other reason would the man have done it than to satisfy his own ego? Then to rub into Harry’s face that he’d won? That all that Harry had was the Dark Lord and no one else?

“Good boy, my little horcrux,” Voldemort purred. 

The pleasure in his tone enough to make Harry’s spine shiver. 

Then, warmth lit up inside him, somewhere that Harry could not place. It was similar to his skin burning up like a pyre, roasting him from the inside out. 

It was pleasure, but not one that came from him. No. it came from somewhere else.

_ Could it be Voldemort’s? _ Harry thought, his heart beating wildly when that heat began to spread. More of that foreign emotion curtained around him until he could no longer tell whether this was his own pleasure or Voldemort’s.

Then, Voldemort’s finger was on his chin, forcing his head to look him.

Harry wished he hadn’t looked. That somehow, he could erase the vision of his gaze blazing with hunger and lust, lips twisted into a wry smile that was all wrong on that snake-like visage.

“Say it again,” Voldemort said, and Harry’s throat went dry. He didn’t want to, not when Voldemort was looking at him as if he were going to eat him, as if he was barely restraining something monstrous from behind his mask of impassivity. 

There was a violence there that Harry could sense.If he said it again, there was no going back from this. Voldemort would deliver his promise, and there would be no stopping it once it began.

A thrill of anticipation and horror thrummed beneath his skin, and Harry couldn’t tell whether it was his or Voldemort’s. He didn’t know where he began and where Voldemort ended, didn’t know if all of this desperation on his flesh was actually his own.

Harry licked his lips, watching how Voldemort followed the motion, before saying the words.

“I’m yours, My Lord.”

The words were a trigger that changed everything in a matter of seconds. Powerful magic erupted and devoured everything in its path.

Voldemort pulled out almost entirely, hand gripping Harry’s ankle before he pulled it over his shoulder. Harry’s muscles screamed with discomfort. He’s never bent his legs that high or far back before, even as an athlete. 

There was no precision in Voldemort’s movements. No poise. His motions were frantic, as if something had been unleashed that could no longer be contained, and Harry only had one moment to suck in a sharp breath before Voldemort buried his cock inside him. His ridges sliced into his skin, blood lubricating him far better than whatever lubricant Voldemort had smeared into his arse.

Harry screamed, the magic restraining his arms fell away, and suddenly he was clutching onto Voldemort’s shoulders for dear life, nails cutting into the fabric, in order to ground himself somehow. 

Pain exploded, the barbed tip stabbing into his prostate with a mercilessness Harry had no time to prepare for. White flashed behind his eyes, blackened spots crept along the corners of his vision.

It was excruciating, but Harry did not stop him. He curled the leg hanging nearly off the bed around Voldemort’s waist and tugged him closer. 

He was high, intoxicated by the volatile sensations warring in him. It was euphoric; the man’s pleasure, the intoxicating heating of Voldemort’s cock inside him, stripping him raw, as delicious as it was terrifying.

Voldemort dug his nails into Harry’s thigh as he fucked into him, blood oozing from the cuts and dribbling down his leg in rivulets. 

It resembled the ruby of Voldemort’s eyes, a crimson current glimmering beneath the shadowy light in the room. Harry stared at it for a moment, before a brutal thrust ripped his focus away. As if Voldemort were demanding his attention. Knowing him, he probably wanted to hear Harry beg for his ruin.

And Harry would oblige. He would do whatever Voldemort wanted if he would let him cum.

“Say it again, Harry. Scream for me.”

“M-my Lord,” Harry howled, head falling to one side, making room for the Dark Lord to lean down to lick his neck, to taste around the edges of where Voldemort had bitten him last. The wound stung, but Harry did not care, he wanted more.

Pain was pleasure, and pleasure was pain. Chasing, always chasing, after Harry’s pleasure in the pain. Voldemort’s ecstasy was his own, and if that meant that Harry had to suffer to achieve his orgasm, he would.

_ Merlin, I’d do anything. _

Voldemort sucked at his collarbones. Harry’s mouth parted, but no words came. His throat had dried, stuffed full of cotton that dampened his screams.

Emboldened, Voldemort twined his fingers around their pricks, and Harry could no longer contain himself. This wasn’t enough. He wanted more than those fingers twisting his prick and fucking into his arse. He wanted to break. He wanted to shatter to pieces. He wanted to finish what the Dark Lord had begun, what Voldemort had denied him. 

Harry, weak as he was with agony racking through him, decided that no more—there was no more dignity left for him to salvage, no Harry Potter to protect when he had fallen so low. 

Steeling himself, Harry flipped Voldemort onto his back, taking full advantage of the Voldemort’s surprise to grind down on his lap.

This time, Voldemort would not deny him orgasm. Not again. Harry needed to come.

“ _ More, my Lord _ ,” Harry hissed in parseltongue, before pressing his hands onto Voldemort’s chest and burying more of that cock inside him. “Rip me open, I’m yours.”

Voldemort’s surprise melted into amusement, lips twisting into a predatory smile that made a thrill rush up Harry’s spine.

“As you wish, my horcrux.”

The words were more a threat than acquiescence. Harry didn’t care. He settled his knees on either side of the man’s hips, and with all the strength he could muster from his quivering legs, pulled out of Voldemort’s cock and slammed back down.

Agony tore through him, before a whisper of pleasure chasing after the torture a half second after the pain. It left him breathless, the thought that Voldemort was not nearly as unaffected as he seemed. The connection between their souls exposed his emotions and betrayed his own desire to feel more of Harry’s tight warmth encasing one of his cocks. 

Harry gripped both of their dicks with one hand, thumb teasing at his own slit and stroking them both in time to his own thrusts.

His pace was slow, slower than Voldemort’s had been when he’d been fucking his arse with near abandon, but this was better. Here, with this control, Harry knew that Voldemort could not stop just short of Harry’s climax. Harry would get what he wanted from this and never do this again.

It would be the first and the last.

Voldemort’s hands clenched onto Harry’s hips as Harry fucked himself on that cock, eyes half-lidded and wet with tears. The moisture trickled down his cheeks, but Harry paid it little mind. Voldemort’s cock demanded all of his attention. 

It hurt so much. Each thrust was another wound that speared him further inside. But that zing that rushed up his spine each time he slammed into it was addicting. Just as intoxicating as Voldemort’s own sharp breaths and the pleasure that thrummed along their connection.

It wasn’t until the familiar winding pressure squeezed within his navel that Harry’s movements became more frantic, his arms nearly collapsed under his weight. His legs like jelly as he cut himself open each time. Voldemort did nothing more than allow him to move, and for this, Harry was almost grateful.

Voldemort only watched him, staring him down, as if challenging him, taunting him, daring to do more than thrust more of Voldemort’s cock inside him. It made anger blossom within Harry’s chest, a spark of something familiar that urged him to meet that challenge.

Harry squeezed their pricks tighter, brutal as he jabbed his nail into his own prick, mimicking the Dark Lord’s motions from before. Pleasure sang in his blood at the familiar agony, stomach tight with release, the promise of climax so heady that he closed his eyes to push closer.

“Look at you…”

Something wrenched from Harry. Words of praise doing things to him that he never thought possible. 

He didn’t want his praise. Harry didn’t need it, but Merlin, the way he said those words. The way Voldemort’s fingers tightened imperceptibly on Harry’s hips shoved Harry over the edge.

Harry saw white, mouth parting into a loud cry as he came all over Voldemort’s robes. It clashed with the dark fabric, but Harry couldn’t focus on it when Voldemort squeezed him viciously, as if riding the wave of his own orgasm, before snapping his cock upwards and burying his cock deeper.

The motion tore a scream from Harry’s mouth. It had been unexpected, so sudden, that he collapsed onto Voldemort’s chest. Weak and pathetic, he tried to gather his bearings.

Voldemort granted him no moment of respite. He sat up, hands clasping him onto the backs of Harry’s thighs to prop him more comfortably on his lap, manipulating his body with an ease that shouldn’t have been possible, but was. 

“I promised you pleasure beyond your wildest dreams, torment beyond even your own comprehension,” Voldemort said, “and I am a man of my word.”

Voldemort pulled out from him, and Harry whined, his other hand releasing his own cock to join the other in latching weakly onto the Voldemort’s shoulders. The sharp tip of Voldemort’s cock was now grazing his hole, but Harry knew, like a burning sun in the recesses of his mind, that Voldemort was far from finished. 

Fear and desire coiled inside him, the confusing mass of emotion difficult to wade through when eclipsed by his post-coital bliss.

“Scream for me,  _ Harry _ .”

The sudden shock of triumph that sparked to life in the back of his mind was quickly stilled when, not one, but  _ two _ , sharp ends buried inside him, skewering him.

Harry screamed. Agony tore through him and he rocked against it, Voldemort’s pleasure bore through him in perfect synchrony with the pain. Voldemort was tearing him in two, stretching him beyond what he had accustomed to. His pleased groans cut between Harry’s screams, and Harry’s delight and happiness bled into the torturous thrust of Voldemort’s cocks.

‘Wai-ah!” Harry wailed when Voldemort pulled back out and pushed back inside.

Like glass shattering, Harry’s voice broke, tears and saliva dribbling down his chin. In and out. Harry counted each one, pinpointed each time the barbed ends spliced along inside him, lubricated him more thoroughly for his assault. Blood was a poor substitute, but in that moment, it didn’t matter. The pain was the same regardless. 

The stench of iron and the wet squelching of his insides made each slide easier than the last. Replenishing the dried blood to ease the passage of Voldemort’s cocks. Each new cut bestowed upon the fragile flesh both a relief and a punishment.

Harry was helpless, unable to do anything except ride the wave of agony. Screaming and screaming, unsure if he wanted Voldemort to keep ripping him apart or stop, until those cries turned into sobs.

_ Isn’t this what you wanted? _ An insidious voice murmured into his head.  _ Isn’t this what you craved, what you deserve? _

A hand curled around his neck, and Harry closed his eyes as sharp nails dug into the underside of his jaw to pull him closer to Voldemort’s panting mouth. The man’s breath fanned along his face, the stench of death and earth rich within the tuffs of air, but Harry was too lost to care.

All that mattered was the pain and—

Then, Voldemort’s cocks knocked against Harry’s prostate, and confusing sparks of ecstasy mangled him. Like a dam had been broken open, and Voldemort’s pleasure was now pulsing through him like the uncontrollable flood of magic.

Harry’s pained screams morphed into pleasured cries. His fingers clenched down harder, the rapture inuring him with the confidence to open his eyes and glimpse into the face of the monster fucking him.

Voldemort’s eyes were brilliant gems, hot and expressive with his pleasure. It was like glimpsing into the flame of a hearth, like being caught in the throat of a massive serpent. Voldemort looked at him as if he wanted to devour him, to twist them into one single being until neither one knew what being alone was.

_ Is that not what you wanted? Never to be alone?  _

Harry’s mouth broke open with a loud cry when Voldemort rocked his hips into his prostate. A hand curled onto his cock, and the fingers still pressed tight against his throat squeezed, straining his breaths.

“Is this not what you wanted, Harry Potter?” Voldemort whispered, echoing the thoughts beating in time with the rapid drumming of his heart. Echoes of his own twisted moans and groans like prayer in a silent church. 

Tears ran down his cheeks, the inexplicable sparks of conflicting sensations pulling him in one too many directions.  _ Merlin _ , Harry wanted to scream, to say. But that was impossible, each slide of Voldemort’s pointed cocks inside him, each time those fingers pumped his prick to bring him closer to an orgasm, rendered him speechless.

Something hot and sticky slid down his shaking thighs, smearing against his legs each time Voldemort coaxed Harry to move along with his sporadic movements.

_ Is that all me? All that my blood? _ Harry wanted to ask, weak and swept away by the heat of Voldemort’s breath against his face, of his tongue sliding wetly against those thin lips.

_ Does it matter? _ Another voice whispered in his head, and Harry choked when Voldemort’s hand clenched tighter around his throat and Voldemort’s other hand began to pump his hard cock—when had he gotten hard? He forgot when—to drag him closer to his next orgasm. 

“Answer me.” Voldemort hissed, mouth pressing against Harry’s as if to whisper the terrible secrets against him. Harry leaned into it drawn in by the spark of electricity the gesture elicited.

Harry slid his tongue against that lip, eyes wide open as Voldemort speared him with a look, eyes boring into his soul in search of something Harry did not have the presence of mind to explain, when Voldemort was wounding him enough for him to bleed out.

“I will leave you if you do not speak,” Voldemort said against Harry’s lips, and that was all the encouragement Harry needed to stop his sobs.

“Y-yes!” 

Harry clenched his eyes shut when Voldemort squeezed his throat in reward and grinned against Harry’s mouth, eyes flashing. 

Darkness crept along the edges of his vision, the pain and the pleasure caving his stomach in, his thighs shaking with the force of Voldemort’s thrusts. 

“Yes what, my horcrux?” Voldemort asked, but Harry could barely hear him. 

His words were far away, and his was face blurring at the edges from the tears and the lack of oxygen clouding his consciousness.

Harry’s mouth parted, but it was slack with spittle, tongue lolling uselessly as Voldemort suffocated him with a powerful grip on his throat. Harry was dying. At the mercy and whim of a madman, but he wasn’t afraid. The haze, the pleasure, and the pain were coiled in his belly, building ever more while underneath the stare of the most powerful wizard in the world.

“You know the words…” Voldemort crooned, soft and inviting in spite of the furious thrusting of hips. 

The world grew darker and darker the longer the Dark Lord deprived him of air, the promise of bliss right at the tip of Harry’s tongue. 

_ Say it _ , a voice commanded. Soft and sweet, like the sweet thrum of a harp played in a chapel, despite its imperious quality.  _ Give him what he wants so that he can give you what you need. _

Harry latched onto what little control he had left, realizing how his arms hung uselessly on the Voldemort’s collar—confused as to when he’d become no more than a doll on the Voldemort’s lap. There was no force, no will to move, as weakened as he was. Was it the blood loss? Was it the lack of oxygen? Or both? Harry had no way of knowing, dazed as he was.

“Y-yes, my Lord,” Harry croaked. 

Then his eyes popped open with shock when Voldemort suddenly released his throat and forced him onto his back. Harry’s legs fell uselessly on either side of Voldemort’s hips and, and then Voldemort snapped his hips, burying himself even deeper. Harry screamed, the loud slaps unrecognizable as Voldemort fucked him mercilessly.

_ Is this not what you wanted? _

Harry’s vision went black for a moment as the smell of blood in the air and the loud slaps of Voldemort’s cocks burying deeper inside him intensifies. It was wrong—so wrong—he wasn’t supposed to be delighted at being split open, at being defiled and fucked by a monster.

_ But you are, aren’t you? You want to be defiled, don’t you? _

Revulsion should have overcome him, should have broken him away from the pleasure singing in his blood. But it didn’t. Each time Voldemort’s fingers coiled around his prick, thumb flicking against the head of his prick, it was  _ ecstasy _ . 

Each time Voldemort plunged inside him—buried into him—Harry wanted to beg for more. Wanted to moan into Voldemort’s ear just how much he wanted to come apart at the seams; for Voldemort to fuck him until this ache inside, this emptiness within him, faded away.

Voldemort leaned down to mouth against his neck, his tongue lapping at his pectoral and tracing the muscle, before sucking his nipple into his mouth, teeth catching on the nub.

_ Yes _ .

Reinvigorated, Harry arched his back, legs forcing the man closer and deeper inside him, locked in his body as Voldemort swirled his nipple into his mouth and bit at the flesh. Harry’s eyes fell open to stare unseeingly at the ceiling, pinpricks rendering his limbs useless, and then, drawn in by the intensity of Voldemort’s stare, Harry’s gaze shifted down to the look at his thighs. 

Everything was red.

All he could taste, could smell, could feel was the acrid stench of blood. Of how with each pull of Voldemort’s cocks, more of the brilliant red spilled from inside, dragging strange flesh Harry had never seen before in his life.

It was pink and red, dewy with Voldemort’s fluids and Harry’s blood.

They were undeniably his intestines. The sight a repulsive and undeniable truth. It simply couldn’t be anything else.

But Harry wasn’t afraid. 

There was no fear or disgust. Not even a twinge of revulsion sparked within his mind at the sight. He was drowning, his nerves singing, and all that registered was his own soul-crushing need. 

They drowned it all out, enveloped him in a cloud Harry had no means of resisting. With each delicious tug at his innards, each drag of Voldemort’s cock in and out of his arse, he was propelled closer to his climax. His desire to crest, to come part, to break, was undeniable. The promise of his orgasm was an insistent beat against the back of his mind, a vicious beast that was far crueler than even Voldemort’s violent sadism.

_ You’re so close now. You’re almost there. _

Eyes fluttering, Harry rocked his hips in time to Voldemort’s thrusts, impaling himself further onto Voldemort’s cocks. His desire and self-loathing insisted that he keep moving, demanded that he harm himself for  _ more _ . 

In that moment, his past did not matter. Who he was meaningless.

All that mattered right now was Voldemort’s cocks, and how each tug of those barbed ends against his insides set his blood aflame. The man’s thoughts and emotions suffocated him, snuffing out the horror, drowning him in delicious pain.

And then—

Voldemort’s teeth plunged into his chest, gnawing at his skin. 

Harry screamed.

White flashed in the back of his eyes, tipped over the edge as pain and the rush of pleasure thrummed along that connection. Like fangs piercing his skin to inject venom. 

Darkness overcame him and his body collapsed. Rendered useless by the shocks of Voldemort’s cocks fucking him despite the weight of lethargy. 

Voldemort didn’t stop. He continued to fuck Harry, uncaring of the fact that Harry had orgasmed for the second time. Harry’s cock hung uselessly between the man’s fingers, the stimulation too much when paired with Voldemort’s violent thrusts.

Agonizing pleasure lanced through him at the continued thrusts, and Harry began to arch his back to force the man out, to make the abuse on his prostate end.

“P-please, n-no more.  _ Stop. _ ”

Voldemort didn’t—wouldn’t. He plowed into him, laughing when Harry sobbed, his cock twitching painfully when a dry orgasm was ripped out of him. 

“Careful what you wish for, my horcrux…” Voldemort mocked.

Harry didn’t listen,  weighed down by a mixture of pain, exhaustion, and unwanted pleasure. 

Voldemort, even when his face began to glow with a fine sheen of sweat, did not relent. The torment went on endlessly. Orgasm after painful orgasm ripped through him, his cock coated with fluids, his soft flesh caught between Voldemort’s grip. 

He did not cease stroking Harry. Voldemort’s thumb played with the slit to drive Harry insane with bliss. Harry’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and his mouth slackened with his silent screams as Voldemort continued to torture him.

There was no escape; Voldemort’s hot mouth lapped at his neck, his lips and teeth marking Harry’s throat for all the world to see. 

Harry didn’t know how long this went on for, incapable of thinking of anything else but Voldemort’s suffocating presence. 

He was a shaking mess. Time and space, reality and the imaginary plane, converged into one. His mind was adrift, Voldemort’s searing touch scorched him from the inside out. 

It was on only after his fifth orgasm that something changed. Voldemort’s thrusts became more frantic, his hand wound tightly around Harry’s cock. A low hiss escaped Voldemort’s mouth, but Harry’s mind became muddled once again when a sharp nail dug into his slit, blinding him.

Then, a hot stream gushed inside him nearly a second before Harry was tipped over the edge once again, Voldemort's weight crushing his pelvis. A shock of heat, a bellow torn from his abused throat in perfect harmony with Voldemort’s own low groan.

It was as if they were one, rather than two. 

One soul, one heart, and one mind. 

Harry’s cock twitched, but there was no more fluid to expel. It had long since dried, fucked out of him by Voldemort. Voldemort’s hands, Harry’s thighs, and stomach were drenched with it.

Warmth spread through Harry like a toxin, his blood, and the fluids splattered onto his skin, comforting even when in the back of his mind, that notion was  _ wrong. _

This weightlessness, contentment, and peace were all wrong. He’d been soiled. Violated both in the physical and mental sense. He shouldn’t have been as accepting of this as he was, he should be fighting and struggling against it but—

That sweet abyss called to him. His mind blanketed by this sweet fog.

Harry shuddered when the man finally pulled out, and something wrenched, a ripple in the nothing. It was as though a piece of himself had come away with Voldemort’s cocks. Had Voldemort, at that moment, stolen another fragment of his soul? Was there anything of the boy he once was left?

Harry wanted to open his eyes, take a glimpse. and see for himself if that was his soul being pulled from his insides, but he couldn’t. Something inside him urged him not to, whispered into his mind that he shouldn’t because what Voldemort had taken from him was not his soul. It was something else, something that ached and festered. 

_ Pink and red flesh dewy with Voldemort’s fluids and his _ —

Horror cut through him, like ripples on placid waters. Panic trickled into his mind, and his breaths, as well as his heart, began to race because— _ oh god, oh  _ god—

_ Shhh, it’s okay. _ .. a different voice interrupted. 

A voice that was nothing like Harry’s or Voldemort’s sinuous thoughts.

_ It will be okay, _ the voice whispered, and a wave of peace followed, granting him a respite. Wrapping its invisible arms around him, and enveloping him in a warm cocoon. 

_ Let yourself rest. _ ..

Harry sank into it like a rock thrown into still waters.

It was unbelievably warm, like an oversized sweater on frigid skin. Like a luxurious fireplace flaring to life when one needed it most, summoned by the force of one’s own magic. He craved it like a starving mind desired food. He wanted this, wanted what this voice had to offer with every fiber of his being, bewitched by the promise in its voice. 

_ Let me hold you.  _

Harry’s fingers were cold, the furious heat of Voldemort’s desire no longer enough to keep him warm. A shudder wracked him when sharp nails trailed up his neck, following some unknown pattern until they stopped at his scar, caressing his sweat-slicked skin. The scar pulsed, twinging with a phantom pain, but Harry did not move.

Harry couldn’t even if he’d tried—he was overcome with a bone-deep weariness that refused to abate. A deep-seeded loneliness flowing and  _ pressing  _ against his psyche until he was crushed by it. His desire to fight was lost to the confusing emotions.

But it was nothing to the sudden flare of his disgust. 

It was a rancid stench that refused to leave, clinging to his nose, to his skin, to his  _ brain _ . It was his fault that this happened to him. All of it. If he hadn’t let himself get caught, if he hadn’t let himself give in, then perhaps, this all could have been different. Voldemort would never have killed his friends, Voldemort would never have backed him into a corner. 

Harry would never have considered making a horcrux, never would have considered giving into the Dark Lord. 

But he had. The evidence of what they’d both had done was too much for even him to bear. It was wrong, so fucking  _ wrong.  _ Merlin, it was all his fault he had—

_ Forget about him, Harry. Forget about your pain, forget about your sorrow, _ that strange voice interrupted, smooth as rich chocolate. 

The voice was reassuring, so utterly  _ understanding _ . 

It was…

Nice.

Despite himself, Harry’s body relaxed, trusting the promises woven into the words. Drawn in, enamored by the comforting weight of its presence at the forefront of his mind. 

It was familiar, somehow. Like a long-lost friend that Harry had forgotten about.

Harry wanted to claim that voice for himself. It tasted of freedom, smelled of  _ love _ . It was a darkness, a void of the best kind. There was no Ginny. There were no dying cries or maimed faces crying out for help. No friends that gazed accusingly at him, asking him why it wasn’t  _ him _ that had died.

It was only Harry and that sweet voice, only him and that—

_ It’s okay, Harry… _

Harry sighed, suddenly weightless. He was floating, giving into the shadow murmuring into his mind. 

Here, he’s comforted. Here, he can abandon Voldemort’s poisonous promises and heart-wrenching truths, and avoid the white noise of Voldemort’s claws against his scar. 

This was...home.

_ Shhh. Here, you will never hurt again. _


	6. Delirium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised, here is Part VI of this wild story. If you are confused by the end of this, it's okay, I am too. You'll find that the title is rather fitting, indeed haha.
> 
> I don't know how to feel about this chapter, personally. I have many reservations. This went through so much remodeling that I am hoping the essence of the chapter was not lost through all the edits between me and my beta after the fact.
> 
> Part VII should be posted sometime next week!
> 
> Thank you, collapsingchurches for going through this!
> 
> Leave comments, if you enjoyed!

Darkness was like fine wine in the back of Tom’s mouth. Bitter in its richness, savory in the way the liquid trickled past his lips and down, down, _down_ his throat.

Tom Riddle’s words were like ichor, reviving dying men. Bringing to life what had once been deadened flesh, and releasing souls that were once imprisoned, cast away by injustices of the wizarding world.

Tom’s words were sweet, and he knew this. Delighted with the ease with which he could deceive. It was a skill honed with painful precision.

To survive, he had learned how to deceive, how to concoct the greatest of lies to sway those that refused to yield, to enamor and bewitch the minds of the insecure. Tom’s words were powerful, and it was in the whispers into Harry’s mind, in the press of his fingers to the edges of the boy’s desperate cries, that Tom fit.

Wedged between the nothing and the pain, this was where Tom awoke. Startled by the screams of a parted mouth Tom had never known could cry in such an excruciating way. It made his chest ache, made his insides curl into itself to bear witness to such a sound when that voice had only ever been sweet whispers and joyous laughter.

It was...cold. The warmth had drained from the boy’s soul. Had splintered and melted away until all that Tom felt, all that he knew upon awakening, was _death._

 _Harry?_ Tom called, but his utterance was only met by screams. Loud, piercing cries that speared through him, deafening. They echoed in the emptiness like droplets rippling through placid waters.

 _Harry?_  Tom sought out the boy’s ears with the power of his voice, reaching for the warmth Tom had known for so long. The boy did not respond. There was only silence. Rather than the delicate sighs of a soft mouth, or perhaps, an excited breath, there was _nothingness_.

Empty.

Until it wasn’t, until Tom reached out and his fingers pressed against something soft and hard all at once. Their body swallowed by the black. There was no way of distinguishing who it belonged to, but Tom did not need to _see_ to know.

Gently, Tom’s fingers roamed over flesh, skin that could only belong to _Harry_. A texture he could recognize anywhere, that he had familiarized himself with after years of sleeping within this boy’s chest. A decade of nothing but love and purity—foreign emotions Tom personally did not understand, but now could recognize. Feeding, and _feasting_ on all that the boy had to offer—desperate to smooth the torn edges of his soul after his counterpart had unwittingly cast him aside...

 _Let me in..._ Tom whispered, and his words coiled tightly around his host, twisting within the boy’s innards like live insects feasting on flesh. Thriving, yearning, for the one that had become his home, for the soul that had housed his when no other had dared give him a place in their hearts.

His words echoed within the abyss, the cavernous plane rippling under the pressure of his words, caving and bending until the shadows, too, began to dissipate. Until all that remained, until all that Tom felt was Harry’s fragmented soul reaching for his, desperate to be mended, to be made whole after being shattered to pieces.

Half of Harry was lost, part of his heart broken and unmade under the poisonous hands of a serpentine creature Tom realized...was his future self.

Tom recoiled when cold fingers latched onto his wrist, absorbing his heat, drinking in the joy he’d been cocooned in for decades. The emerald green of Harry Potter’s eyes the only source of color in a sea of black.

It was maddening to see just how much had been lost, to see not the whole, golden sparks of Harry Potter’s soul radiating heat. The flames that had drawn him like a moth to a violent flame were nothing but cinders now.

Its shine, its warmth, and its humanity besmirched by the caprices of a man who wished to become a _God_. A man that was afraid. Desperate and cruel enough to taint not only his own soul to ensure his survival, but Harry’s as well. For what better punishment was there for Voldemort’s persistent enemy than ensuring that Harry, too, became ensnared in this web of sickness and decay?

There were splintered edges where there had once been none. Gaps and gouges that oozed pus and blood where there had once been pristine and unmarred flesh, save for Harry’s lone scar. Harry had become a festering wound that refused to mend itself back together. Even when it desperately wished to seal itself shut.

Sulfur and rotted meat cut through his senses, but Tom did not fight Harry’s grip on his wrist. There was no need to, no desire to pull away when this boy had been his everything, when Harry’s heart and mind had _protected_ the dying piece of himself in spite of the improbability of such a feat.

No, Tom had no right to abandon this boy, to turn his back on the only one that had bothered to stay...to hold onto him as tightly as a mother did a sickly babe.

Harry was broken, millions of soul fragments barely wound together, but Tom would not abide this. He would not turn a blind eye to the injustice. The boy was _his_ , had been his from the moment his soul had become tethered to the heat of Harry’s soft heart.

It _infuriated_ Tom to see what had become of his boy, to have awoken not because Harry had willfully brought him to the forefront of his mind, but because a version of himself had _tortured him_. This monstrous caricature of who Tom would become had done this, had _dared_ wrench his boy apart and unmake him. It was disgusting. _Vile._

This monster had dampened the light Tom had lived inside for a decade, snuffed out the joy and happiness he had come to learn after decades of nothing, after years of apathy. He hadn’t wanted it, no. Tom did not want kindness, had not wanted to know what _love_ was and what it could do for him...his emotions deadened to a world that sought to destroy him.

But Harry had not given him a choice. The boy had opened his arms, had let Tom inside and refused to set him free. Forced him to learn what yearning was, what _happiness_ was.

His counterpart had betrayed him. It was criminal, for the very _man_ Tom Riddle had wished to become to deprive Tom’s soul of Harry’s light. It was but another sin. Only by association, but a condemnation nevertheless because Voldemort was _him_ in more ways that Tom could ever be Harry.

Tom could never mimic Harry’s softness, could never strive to replicate Harry’s kindness and selflessness. Harry was a bleeding heart in every sense of the word, but there was iron hidden beneath that flesh, surprising as that had been.

The boy was not all softness, was not all _kindness_.

Harry, too, was an _inferno_. A destructive storm that once tapped into, could not be contained. It was a pity, indeed, that it only ever came alive when in the service of others. It was...almost admirable the lengths he would go without acquiring something in exchange.

Of course, Tom would never dream of adopting any of those qualities. He did not wish to become a soft-hearted fool like Harry was. The boy’s martyrdom was evidence enough of how _stupid_ such a thing would be.

Tom would never sacrifice himself for others. Never without something, never without—

Yes, it was _foolish_ to be Harry. Stupid and weak to breathe kindness where there shouldn’t be, to want to _save_ even the least deserving when they were not worth even the scum beneath Tom’s boots.

No, Tom did not _save_. Even softened by the power of Harry’s own love, there was no idealism in his heart. Nothing could ever twist his character in such a fashion.

And yet—

Tom clenched his jaw, hand twisting to grip the boy’s bony wrist to draw him closer, to bring his emptiness nearer to Tom’s own frayed edges. The boy did not resist.

Voldemort did not _deserve_ to live. The monster did not _deserve_ eternity, was not worthy of the privilege of Harry’s flesh, of Harry’s heart, of Harry’s _soul_.

Harry was _Tom’s_ , and Tom’s alone. Not Voldemort’s. The boy did not even belong to himself. He had not been his own person since that fated night on October 31st, 1981.

Tom clenched his jaw before tightening his grip on the boy’s wrist to bring him closer; the miasma, the shadow of the world surrounding them both bleeding into their naked flesh, seeping into their bones until they became one. Harry sank into his arms, his grip on Tom’s wrist slackening. Nothing more than a doll within Tom’s arms for the moment.

With another tug, Harry fell completely into his arms, melting into his embrace and into the heat alive within Tom’s belly. Harry’s essence, his mind, and his heart were housed within the concave of Tom’s chest, wedged between his ribcage and his sternum, where he’d drank the boy’s life with hungry sucks. A piece of Harry that Tom hoped would rekindle the boy’s spirit.

Harry twitched within his arms. It was all the warning Tom had before Harry’s arms wrapped around him, embracing him, yearning for the warmth that he’d lost, for the spark that’d died at the cruel hands of a merciless Dark Lord.

 _Good boy_ , Tom cooed, _that’s it._ He whispered into Harry’s mind, an unvoiced order for the boy to rest, to sink into Tom’s embrace and allow himself to be cherished. _Adored_ as he was meant to, as he _deserved._ The boy had suffered enough, the boy had seen enough.

 _Why are you here, helping me_? Harry’s voice cut through the miasma, through the nothing. Tom’s insides clenched until they ached, the sorrow thick in the boy’s whisper almost too much for him to bear. It was as if Tom had been wrenched apart. Pried open and twisted in a way he’d never experienced before.

Not since becoming to Harry’s soul, pressed intimately against Harry’s soul, content to sleep underneath the boy’s resplendent light. _Don’t I deserve this?_

How... _weak_ Tom had become, how far he had fallen—

But Harry was his _home_. The closest to whole Tom had ever been, would _ever_ be. This was the closest to _love_ he’d ever felt. To hear this agony, to feel ice rather than heat sink deeply into his skin where Harry pressed against him...it _ached._

It soured the rich flavor of Harry’s presence, ruined with bitterness the sweet and wholesome fragrance of Harry’s soft skin. It didn’t quiet the restlessness, didn’t soothe the tattered edges of his own soul.

No, it was only discord.

Harry’s soul was _screaming_. Empty, hungry, and vicious like a voracious beast tearing into Tom’s skin, the stench of something foul hanging over the boy’s body making him nauseous. It was cancerous, just as Voldemort’s soul had become. Just like everything Lord Voldemort _touched._

Bile crept up Tom’s throat.

 _How could Voldemort do this to him? To_ them?

Through Harry, Tom had learned not to _fear_. He had realized that death was not his enemy, that breaking himself into pieces was not required to _survive_. There were more important goals to reach, more interesting ways of burrowing into the minds of the masses and taking control.

Killing was an option, an alternative he had no plan of rejecting. War, after all, required casualties, but there was no _need_ to fear death. No need to sacrifice his sanity, his intelligence, and his _charisma_ for power that he could readily achieve through other means.

Harry had shown him so much _more_ , had opened the door to possibilities he had never considered before. His brilliance was not only a comfort, was not simply a means of healing a festering wound Tom had not realized he had, but an awakening. Harry’s purity had quieted the demons summoned by the specter known as death; had silenced the insistent hisses and threats posed by the memories of bombs raining from the sky and setting ablaze all that he had known.

Voldemort had broken his _Harry_ , had splintered and unmade him into something Tom no longer recognized.

Did Harry deserve this? The question was absolutely absurd.

 _No, you do not_ , Tom murmured into the boy’s mind, bringing him closer, as if to chase away the pain wound deeply about the boy’s heart. But there was no chasing away the emptiness, no mending the cracks Voldemort had carved into the boy’s mind. His skin was cold to the touch, just as Tom imagined Voldemort had to be. _You were never meant for this._

Tom was unsurprised by the fact that he meant those words, that he wished at that moment he could mend the mess in Harry’s soul, and recreate the sparkle of light that had nearly blinded him the first time he’d witnessed it when he’d been torn away from Voldemort’s festering soul.

Harry sighed, burrowing deeper into his arms, chasing after the warmth and promises only Tom could offer, that only Tom knew he could give the boy. Tom was certainly no saint. No, he would never claim such a title, never _lie_ by hiding the kind of monster that he was.

But he was _not_ Voldemort.

These words were not empty promises. They were not meant to do harm, to _maim_. No, these words were, for once, meant to _help_. Words that he had heard families whisper into the ears of their loved ones before he’d killed them. These words were law. His newfound creed.

Harry did not deserve the hand Voldemort had dealt him. He did not deserve to be imprisoned and _tortured_ in this gilded prison.

No, never Harry.

 _If I didn’t, then why am I still_ here _? Why do my insides hurt, as if something_ important _has been ripped out of me?_ Harry asked, voice barely above a whisper. Tom took in the questions with a patience he lacked, anger blistering his insides when boy curled further into him and his arms wrapped tighter around his neck, as if afraid Tom would abandon him to the abyss.

Voldemort would pay.

The promise of retribution was like sweet honey in the back of Tom’s tongue. Tom wanted nothing more than to let this hatred overcome him, to set the world ablaze in Harry’s name.

Tom held himself back.

If only for the moment. To harness that cruelty, to awaken the beast snarling inside him would only worsen the situation, presently. Tom could not let his rage control him, could not expose the boy to this noxious emotion when the connection between them was so thin. Attenuated at best, ready to come apart at any moment’s notice if Tom was not careful to keep his own mind and emotions in check.

He didn’t want to frighten Harry away. No, not when the boy was so vulnerable. Tom needed him intact, needed to mend what could be mended before he dared expose the boy to such powerful emotions. To rush this, to force the boy’s hand so soon would eviscerate whatever still remained of Harry Potter in that soul.

Tom would be gentle, he would _try_ , for the boy that had done more for him than any other had, including the monstrous version of himself.

 _Because you’ve lost half of your soul_ , Tom said, fingers creeping up the boy’s back until they tangled in his hair. They played with the strands, memorizing its texture. _There is nothing you could have done, Voldemort would have forced your hand sooner or later regardless of when that was._

A sob escaped the boy’s lips and Tom grit his teeth, arms tightening around the boy’s shaking body in the hope that it’d chase away the pain. Tom knew that something as inane as an embrace would be insufficient to eclipse the trauma in the boy’s mind, but he tried nevertheless. He refused to allow the boy to suffer in silence, to bear through this pain alone when he did not have to.

 _You did what you could, what you thought was necessary. You are not less, you are nothing like the monstrous creature lurking outside of your mind._ Tom insisted, one hand dropping to smooth along Harry’s naked back, poking at each individual bump of his spine with fascination. _You will no longer need to be alone._

After all, Harry had _him_. Everything that he was, that he had become, was because of Harry. His sanity and the warmth saturating between their bodies, were all because of Harry. Tom would not abandon him, he would not _break_ him.

Not when Harry was so much more. It did not matter that the fragment of Harry’s soul was now marred by Voldemort’s rot, it was still decadence. The boy’s magic still writhed beneath the dimmed glow. It was still _alive._ Still worth protecting, worth salvaging, even if it would require him to give something in exchange to allow it to heal.

 _Do you really think so? I-I’m nothing. Voldemort has taken everything._ Harry sobbed, fingers sinking into Tom’s chest frantically, desperate for the comfort Tom offered regardless of who it was, or _what_ exactly, was offering him kindness. It made Tom almost smile, almost lean in to kiss the top of the boy’s head with an affection he did not understand but wanted to exercise nevertheless.

Tom held himself back, however, eyes brightening with curiosity when his fingers began to explore the naked back pressed against his fingers, caressing the boy’s skin in a similar fashion to the way he had seen the boy do in the past with his companions. Tom didn’t understand how it worked, not in the same way others perhaps might know, but he found that he _wanted_ to touch him, wanted to comfort Harry in the best way he knew how. He would try for his boy, he would _try_.

It was all he could offer—

Tom stilled.

But was this truly _all_ Tom could do? Was Tom so powerless that he was forced to stand aside and gather the remains of a boy he’d once known, to permit this creature to laugh and delight in the suffering of what Tom considered _his?_ Was Tom so _useless_ that all he could do was offer these meager comforts in the hope that Harry would survive the aftermath?

No, Tom Marvolo Riddle could do so much more. He knew _love_ , even if he still felt hatred. The darkness lived within him, thrived and snapped for a taste of the blood of those that had wronged him, that had _harmed_ what was most precious to him.

 _I know so, Harry. You deserve so much more. The world is incapable of harnessing even an iota of the purity in your heart._ Tom said, tone cajoling when the boy’s shaking began to ease, pacified by Tom’s words. _You are not nothing, and if you let me, I can show you just how powerful you are. Show them_ all _just what you are capable of._

Harry burrowed closer into Tom’s arms, his face pressing deeper into Tom’s neck. Tears smeared along his throat, but Tom did not mind them. Harry had been kind enough to house him when no other creature would ever do so. More than accustomed to the rejection because they had _all_ refused to understand, to see his vision of the _world_.

But Harry’s soul had let him, his love unconditional. It had fed Tom its _magic_ , he, the boy’s _murderer_ rather than ejecting him as any sensible person would have...

This was no small price. Tom would give this boy the _world_. Nothing else could suffice as compensation. And if that meant destroying his own self, taking on the serpentine creature, Tom saw no other way. It was only _just_ , as strange as such a concept was.

 _What do you want me to do?_ Harry whispered, throat raw with emotion.  _He’s immortal. He’s_ won.

Tom grimaced, clicking his tongue like a disappointed parent. _No, he has not. You have_ me.

There was a moment where neither of them spoke, where the words flitted about the silence like raindrops on thin glass. And then, the boy was laughing.

It was a high, reedy sound. One born from disbelief and madness, a sound that gripped Tom’s heart and threatened to crush it.

 _And what are you? You’re nothing but a ghost. Just another figment of my imagination._ Harry said, pulling away from Tom’s neck to level Tom with a twisted smile. Mania swam in the boy’s eyes, and Tom feared that at this moment Harry had truly tipped over the deep end. The boy had lost himself, broken under the unlivable pressure of Voldemort’s crushing presence.

_No._

Tom brought the boy closer, and the boy did not fight it. He let himself be pressed against him, let his face be forced back into the crook of Tom’s neck. The boy was pliant, even as he laughed ceaselessly into Tom’s neck, his body shaking with mirth.

 _I am real._ Tom insisted, but the boy only laughed harder, winding his fingers onto Tom’s shoulders. _I am not Ginevra. I am not one of your friends. I am here with you._

Harry shook his head, and once more, pulled his head back to look into Tom’s eyes. The boy studied him, emerald eyes boring into his own, in search of something that Tom had no ability to discern. The boy’s eyes were empty and full all at once, dead and alive. The sheen of madness like a lit pyre in the darkness of an abandoned church.

 _If you’re real, then make me forget. If you’re real, then_ save _me._ Harry mocked, and Tom’s mouth parted only to close a second after.

Pain jolted within him. Fear bloomed like blood from a freshly cut wound. This was not his Harry.

 _No_.

 _What? Cat got your tongue?_ Harry laughed breathlessly like at any moment’s notice he would break, tears gathering at the corner of Harry’s eyes before that moisture began to run down his cheeks. _You’re all talk. All promises just like_ him.

Tom saw red, fury overcoming him at being compared to that monstrous creature just on the other side of their mind. Tom was _nothing_ like Voldemort. Tom would never break what was his, would never push and _push_ until the parts no longer worked, until everything that made the boy who he was, was unmade. Utterly destroyed until all that remained, until all that Harry was, was _nothing_.

No, never to Harry.

Tom was a murderer. Voldemort was a murderer. Lives had been lost by their hands, crimson stained onto pristine walls. All done in the name of power, certainly, but that was where the similarities ended. Voldemort was a mindless creature. There was no goal, no _ambition_. It was only hatred, his mind rendered useless after tearing his soul to atoms with each subsequent atrocity. Tom was no angel, would never be clean, but he was _sane_. A far better alternative to the creature that waited outside.

 _Do not ever compare me to him_. Tom snarled, grip tightening around the boy to the point of pain. He crushed Harry closer, leaned in until he could taste Harry’s breath in his mouth, until he was drowning in the scent of treacle tart on the boy’s lips. The stench of rot and iron were swept away by the smell, its allure more potent than amortentia.

It took everything within Tom to not bridge the gap between their mouths, to not align their hips and stoke a flame burning inside Tom’s navel.

But he did. Merlin did he resist. He would never stoop so low. He was above this, more than a baseless creature that cornered its prey and picked apart at its flesh.

No, Tom savored his prey. Delighted in their screams just as Voldemort did, but _Harry._ The boy was not a toy, was not a creature for him to catch within his palms and squeeze until its bones stabbed into his hands.

Harry, sensing Tom’s inner turmoil, only grinned. _I can see him in you. I know you want me just as your other half does. Why don’t you just take me, Tom? Haunt me here, within my own mind, as he does in the outside world?_

Tom shook his head, but Harry seized that moment to lean in and press their lips together, to trail his tongue along the seam of Tom’s parted lips. Shock rushed up Tom’s spine, eyes widening with surprise when Harry groaned into his mouth and then shifted his weight in Tom’s arms to line their hips together and _rub_.

Heat rattled Tom’s bones, made his insides boil like the bubbling of an overboiled potion.

A gasp tore from Tom’s mouth and Harry pressed his tongue inside, delved into the crypt of Tom’s mouth to drink in Tom’s shuddering breaths. Tom didn’t stop him, didn’t dare move, didn’t dare do _more_ , afraid that if he attempted to move away he’d beckon the boy closer, that he’d take and _take_ just as his counterpart had done.

 _I know you want me, Tom._ Harry said after he pulled back from Tom’s mouth, heat and saliva coating his lips. Harry’s eyes were sparkling with amusement, cheeks flushed with arousal and madness.

Something hard wedged against Tom’s parted thighs, and Tom groaned, unable to stop himself when the boy began to rock furiously against his groin. _I know you want to be inside me, for us to become_ whole.

Tom gritted his teeth when Harry showed no sign of stopping. Rutting against Tom’s cock without a single care, needling him, _tempting_ him with the promise of more of that delicious friction.

_Harry, stop thi—_

Harry pushed against Tom’s chest suddenly, and then Tom was on his back, the boy straddling his hips. Tom’s hands pressed against the boy’s shoulders, but there was no force in them. Tom didn’t stop him, didn’t restrain him even when Harry forced Tom’s hands against Harry’s chest and dragged Tom’s nails against his flesh.

Welts formed wherever Tom’s hands touched, blood rushing to the surface with the threat of blood spilling from the wounds.

Still, Tom did not resist. His arms were shaking with his need to pull Harry closer, to take what the boy was offering, tempted by the beguiling pull of Harry’s gaze and soft mouth. Harry’s hand slipped down to caress his hip, to tease at the flesh before that same hand grasped Tom’s hard cock. Tom groaned, relishing in the way Harry’s grip tightened, an unyielding pressure only just short of crushing.

Tom could only watch him, eyes drawn in by the sheen of desire and madness in the boy’s eyes. They were staring eagerly at his cock, as if Harry wanted nothing more than to devour him, to take him and never let go.

There was a desperation in his movements, in the shaking of the boy’s body that made Tom’s insides curl with grief. He knew why Harry was doing this, understood it even if he didn’t like it.

 _Do you really want me to stop, Tom?_ Harry asked, stroking Tom’s cock within his fist slowly, mimicking the same motions Tom’s monstrous counterpart had used before. Up and down, those fingers went, thumb stroking the underside with a precision that almost made Tom jerk his hips to chase more of that ecstasy coursing through his veins.

 _Why don’t you take me? Hurt me? It’s what_ I _deserve._ Harry crooned, releasing Tom’s cock to line his arse over Tom’s cock, body slick with sweat. There was little explanation as to how the boy managed to line their bodies so perfectly, so easily when Tom did not aid him in the least, when he didn’t want to taint this boy, tarnish that pristine flesh gleaming temptingly beneath his gaze.

Still, Tom did not give in, did not sate himself, refusing to listen to the desire pulling at his innards. Tom bit his cheek until it bled, using the pain to cut through the pleasure. Harry was not in his right mind. This wasn’t Harry, this wasn’t the boy that shied away from praise, that flustered at being noticed in a romantic way.

The world was tilted, skewed.

This wasn’t _Harry_. Tom didn’t know why he had to repeat such a thing like a prayer, why he needed to murmur the words over and over within his mind to defeat the pressure building in his navel, coaxed by the hot grip of Harry’s hand.

Everything was wrong. Everything was—

Then, darkness exploded into color, gold and red streaked along the edges of his vision, unbidden. A new reality manifested before him, rippling the black until a room Tom was unfamiliar with appeared. His mouth parted with surprise, but the emotion did not last for long. It never did, not when Harry Potter, even with his sanity deteriorating at a rapid rate, was involved.  

Red and gold furnishings manifested themselves. The shroud of nothing beneath him transformed into a bed with silken sheets. The familiarity of their texture, the way in which his back was cushioned comfortably by the softness underneath him, told him everything he needed to know about this room without him having to turn his head away from the temptation of Harry’s body straddling his hips.

They were in Gryffindor Tower. A place Harry loved, thought of as _home_ in spite of the pain such memories might cause.

 _This is what you want, no? It is what you’ve always wanted._ Harry said, grasping Tom’s cock to press the blunt end to his arsehole, lubricated only by the precum oozing from the tip of Tom’s prick. The boy’s needs dug into his sides, of its own kind. Tom was not going anywhere.

 _No_.

Tom did not want to do this. He did not wish to take Harry. This was not his intention, this was not what he’d wanted when he’d woken up to Harry’s screaming. Not what he’d expected to see when Harry fought desperately for his climax, bearing through inexplicable pain while impaled on Voldemort’s monstrous pricks.

 _Harry, don’t do this..._ Tom pushed against Harry’s shoulders, but Harry merely grinned, a devious expression overshadowing his pale and worn features before he suddenly impaled himself on Tom’s cock.

Tom threw his head back almost at the same time that Harry screamed, Harry’s vocal chords caught between ecstasy and pain. Harry’s expression twisted, unraveling before Tom’s eyes.

_Salazar._

Unbearable heat engulfed Tom, the tight grip of Harry’s arse around him impossible to resist even when Tom bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to bleed, rivulets of blood dribbling down his chin.

Tom's eyes clenched shut, the opened. It had been a mistake. For now, he could no longer look away. Riveted by the sight of Harry’s bright eyes fluttering shut, and the way his pink lips parted wide to release another delicious moan from his throat.

The image burned itself into Tom’s mind.

 _Fuck me, Tom._ Harry gasped, rising slowly before burying Tom’s cock deeper inside him, sucking Tom in with the tight, unbearable heat spreading through him from the single point their bodies met. _Please._

Tom fought against it, refusing to move despite the pleased cries and the slick slide of Harry’s insides engulfing him. Tom knew he shouldn’t, knew that Harry was not in his right mind, that in that second, Harry believed him to be a figment of his imagination. Another version of Tom that had come to haunt him, to fuck him until his insides were raw.

 _Make me feel good, Tom._ Harry begged, voice cracking with pleasure and emptiness. His eyes flashed. It was a plea. _Make me_ whole.

Tom’s control snapped.

One moment, Tom was lying on the bed with the boy fucking onto his cock with slow but steady thrusts, and the next, Harry was on his back, Tom’s cock buried so deeply inside that Tom couldn’t tell where he started and Harry ended. Harry’s legs wrapped tightly around him, urging him closer and Tom, frenzied, leaned down to kiss along Harry’s throat to taste his skin.

 _Please_...Harry whined, back arching into Tom’s calculated thrusts. It drove Tom mad, it unmade him, splintered his control. Harry was breaking apart before him, parting his legs wider. There was simply no denying him, not when he begged so sweetly. Tom plunged in deeper, transfixed by the sound of Harry’s cock slapping against Tom’s stomach with each jerk of his hips.

Tom gasped into Harry’s neck, teeth aching with his need to bite down, but he held it back. Control was key. He was above this, he was above the primal desires and sadism that his monstrous counterpart indulged in. Harry had already been broken once, had already shattered under Voldemort’s less than gentle mercies.

Not again.

 _More..._ Harry begged, hands carding through Tom’s hair, hand gripping onto his shoulder with desperate abandon. The boy _wanted_ to be filled, wanted merge and become one in the most primal fashion available. The only way the boy knew how.

Tom grunted and shuddered when Harry’s nails dug into his back and drew blood, when the sharp pinpricks only brought the monstrosity buried inside him closer to the surface.

 _Please_ …Harry cried, tears running down his cheeks, voice cracking at the edges with a grief. Tom’s insides clenched unpleasantly. The wail cut through his desire, dampened the heat between their bodies, but Harry did not relent, refused to let him go even when Tom wanted nothing more than to be free of the tempting vision of that anguished face.

Harry continued to sob, voice raw and empty, and Tom, pained by the sound, slowly kissed along the boy’s neck, lapped at his skin, and sucked Harry’s flesh into his mouth. He murmured into it, spoke promises he knew would remain unheard. But it didn’t matter. He painted stories of what their life could be like, of what the world could become if Harry allowed it, allowed _him_ to give him that.

Tom did not wish to take his fill, did not wish to fuck the boy until he was nothing but flesh and bone. Meat and earth scattered within the universe for scavengers to find. Tom wanted to worship him, to _protect him_.

Harry was his _host_ , his _soul._

 _Please Tom, give me this..._ Harry sobbed, and Tom clenched his eyes shut, kisses ceasing for a moment. _Please, please,_ please.

Tom cursed beneath his breath, caving. He couldn’t say no, he couldn’t deny him this. This was what Harry _wanted_. Tom angled his hips, sensing just where Harry needed him to thrust, where Harry wanted him most, like a whisper of a devious thought within his mind, and he plunged inside, ramming into Harry’s prostate with all the ferocity he had.

Harry _screamed._

The boy’s mouth parted open into a wide “O,” eyes widening incredulously. It was sweet. As if Harry hadn’t known pleasure could be this good, that it was unnecessary to be subjected to crippling pain to feel heavenly. Tom watched as Harry's spine bowed, groaning softly underneath his breath when Harry's body spasmed beneath him.

Tom smiled into the boy’s neck, amused by the high-pitched cry that tore from the boy’s lips, from the desperate clench of the boy’s arse around his prick and the way the boy rutted his cock desperately against his stomach.

 _More?_ Tom asked, plowing into Harry’s arse, entranced by the way Harry’s eyebrows knitted together, how Harry’s mouth widened, and his eyes screwed shut as if he were in incredible pain. But Tom _knew_ that Harry was not suffering, knew that Harry was not being torn in two, not when this was only in his _head,_ when there were no physical limitations in this plane.

_Please, Tom, I—_

Tom did not need to be told twice. He closed his hand around Harry’s hard prick, and stroked it in time with his thrusts, deliberately toying with the head with his thumb. Harry shook his head as if he were losing his mind, and Tom only watched, riveted by the sight of _his_ Harry unraveling for him in this way.

Tom stroked him and toyed with the head of Harry’s cock, precum oozing from his slit. Tom’s lips smoothed over Harry’s neck, his teeth grazing his collarbones only to shortly close around his neck and suck that flesh into his mouth. The boy’s soft cries were like music to his ears, and Tom wanted _more_.

He wanted to finger the keys, elicit new sounds only for his ears to catch.

Tom nipped at the boy’s neck, aware of the bruises that will manifest surely from the abuse.

Harry clenched around his cock in response, and Tom cursed, nearly undone by the pressure of boy’s arse sucking him in. Tom pressed closer into Harry’s neck and kissed down the boy’s throat before slowly traveling up. Delighted when Harry keened, the sound nothing like the pained screams that had startled Tom awake.

Tom sucked the lobe of Harry’s ear into his mouth, before stopping just centimeters from the sensitive skin. Something compelled him to, propelled him to whisper into the boy’s ear.

_You’re beautiful, Harry._

Because this creature, though debauched and unmade, broken at the edges, was still worth a thousand serenades. He was still precious.

 _You are loved_...Tom murmured into his ear, and Harry wailed before warmth splattered over Tom’s naked stomach. Pleasure sang in Tom’s veins at the sound, at the way Harry curled into him, yanked him closer even as Tom fucked him, wild and viciously beating into his prostate.

_Tom!_

It wasn’t until Harry’s arse clenched tightly around his cock, till Harry leaned into to press an open mouth kiss into his throat, teeth grazing his neck, that Tom came. Ecstasy exploded within him, filling Harry’s arse with his come as he fucked Harry through his orgasm, unable to stop his hips and his hand from toying with Harry’s spent cock.

Then, white flashed behind Tom’s gaze.

A glimpse of the outside world manifested itself, of Voldemort’s serpentine face gazing possessively at Harry’s slumbering face, hands poised above the skin between the boy’s eyes as it prepared to—

Fury overshadowed the post-coital bliss, and Tom wrapped tightly around Harry’s motionless body, unwilling to let him go. He refused to release what belonged to him and him alone. 

Tom did not know anything about saving, but if there was someone he wished to save, wished to free, it was Harry Potter. The boy had spent the majority of his life sacrificing himself, had spent the entirety of his existence foregoing his own pleasure for that of others. It was time he received something in exchange.

Sobs rocked through the boy in his arms, and Tom held him through it, rode the wave of Harry’s suffering, resolve hardening further when Harry’s crying ceased as abruptly as they’d begun.

It was silent in the imaginary bedroom. Their breaths drowned out by the fury rushing through Tom’s veins, the desire to hurt like a venom atrophying his insides.

 _Make it stop._ Harry whispered, voice cutting through Tom’s anger like a hot blade to butter. _Let it end, let it end, let it—_

 _Shh, let me hold you_. Tom crooned, voice like honey. _It’s okay._

The boy relaxed into his arms, the shaking slowly easing into occasional stirring from the boy.

 _Forget about your pain. Forget about your sorrow._ Tom ordered gently, fingers smoothing over the boy’s back before curling around the nape of the boy’s neck to play with the strands.

_It’s okay._

Tom’s resolve hardened, lips twisting into an angry grimace. Yes, it would certainly be okay. Once Voldemort was taken care of, once the creature’s scales were ripped off one by _one_.

_Here, you will never hurt again._


	7. Catharsis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the end.
> 
> Thank you all for joining me. 
> 
> Leave comments if you enjoyed.

_ White. _

Harry’s eyelids fluttered, uncomprehending. It was so  _ bright _ . More than he was able to take, not after he’d spent so long asleep, clinging to the abyss wading through his memory. 

The bed beneath him was hard and cold. Harder than even the cot he’d lain in when he and his friends had camped for months fleeing the Dark Lord’s persecution. 

_ The Dark Lord… _

Harry immediately shot up, a loud sound fleeing his mouth when he’d been nearly blinded by the sudden flash of light. His hand shot up to cover his eyes, pressing against the skin to chase away the sunspots dancing along his vision.

_ Sun? _

It took him longer than he liked to gather his bearings, to make sense of where he was. But who could blame him? 

Harry was lying in the middle of a posh sitting room. The stairs only several feet ahead, the rails gleaming brightly beneath the sun trickling through the massive windows of the parlor. It was the most lavish place Harry had ever seen, second only to the grandeur of Malfoy Manor…

_ Malfoy Manor… _

Pain spiked through his head, the source of it the scar weeping red tears from the flesh. Harry’s hand slipped over it, in a shoddy attempt to cut off the blood flow. His fingers shook with his exertion, the viscous fluid dribbling between his fingers.

It did not abate, the dull throb bleeding into an ache that pulsed in time with the rapid pulse of his heart. His breaths began to come faster, his eyes falling shut for a moment to protect himself from the brightness.

_ Merlin, what is this…? _

Sharp twinges rocked through him, his back bowing. It was too much too soon, jostling something within him he had no explanation for. His lower back was  _ killing  _ him, a pain like never before splitting him down the middle with each movement he made.

He fell back onto the ground, mind pulling at straws. Everything made so little sense to him. The pain, the sudden explosion of agony from his scar, the desolate state of the impeccable parlor. 

Harry tried to remember, but it was as though he were trying to close his fingers around moving water. Everything was darkness. A thick ooze that refused to come together, that refused to converge into an answer he understood.

Why couldn’t he  _ bloody  _ remember?

With a moan, Harry forced himself up, ignoring the pain that rushed up his spine. It was  _ awful _ . It curved from his tailbone all the way up to the back of his neck, twining around each bump of his spine like a web of thorns. 

Slowly, Harry rose from the ground, legs quivering with his exertions. He swayed, vision spinning for a moment, before he reached blindly for the railing only a foot from where he’d been lying and clung to it. 

Harry didn’t know how long he hung onto the metal, but after a few seconds of ragged breathing, Harry forced himself to stand up straighter, realizing that he’d been holding onto the railing for dear life.

Pain shot up his spine, but Harry gritted his teeth and bore through it. He needed to move, something in the back of his head urged him that it was implicit that he do so. He didn’t know what it was, but it was compelling.

It was an insistent nudge along the back of his mind that demanded it be heard and obeyed.

Though that did nothing to settle the confusion warring with this state of panic. He had woken up in this strange place, his memories all scrambled together into some untenable riddle. 

He didn’t remember pain nor suffering through some sort of injury. In fact, the last discernable memory he had was of waking up with Hermione and Ron right after they’d destroyed the Locket. 

There were fragments of Hermione and Ron running between trees, panicked voices and loud shouts before it all devolved into a jagged mess of nothing. There was laughter, there was pain and agony. Bright red eyes that blazed like an inferno, an expression Harry did not recognize but could  _ swear  _ he’d seen before, all right at the forefront of his mind…

* * *

 

_ His eyes opened slowly, the agony twisting through him swept away by deep-seeded rage. Something terrible was awake; a terrifying and angry beast that demanded blood, that wanted nothing more than for the creature before him to  _ die  _ a painful death. _

_ Power bloomed lowly in his belly, the come and bloodstained along his milky thighs ignored by the delicious heat burning inside him.  _

_ Harry’s vision focused on the shadowed face of the creature above him, of the monstrous face of a man that he detested with everything he possessed. The monster deserved to die, Harry knew. To greet the reaper that Voldemort had so longed to escape.  _

_ How Harry wished that he could deliver this...show this monster what death was like. It was what it most feared...a shame that Harry could not introduce him to death.  _

_ But no matter, there are indeed worse fates than death. _

_ “Awake so soon, my horcrux?” Voldemort said from above him, his sibilant voice curious. Noxious rage overcame him, and it was in that moment that Harry finally felt it, the pulsing rhythm of a wand that belonged to  _ him  _ calling for him with moaned cries. _

_ Harry...Harry...Harry _ ...Tom _. _

_ A sneer broke across Harry’s face, and Voldemort, the  _ fool,  _ stilled. It was all the opportunity Harry needed. _

_ Harry was up in seconds, the injuries and the flesh hanging between his legs ignored. The sheets squelched beneath his legs, but Harry hardly minded. He had a mission, could taste the beckoning croon of his  _ wand  _ demanding for its master. _

_ Fingers wrapped around the wand, and with a whispered spell, Voldemort was flying. Harry waved his hand and the wood from the canopy above splintered, the jagged edges embedding themselves into Voldemort’s flesh, pinning him to the wall on the other side of the room. _

_ Voldemort’s eyes were blazing, anger and shock twisting that delicious visage into something feral. _

_ Harry grinned. _

_ “Wrong.” _

* * *

 

Harry was certain he was missing something. The thought pulsed like a drum in his head, but there was no rhyme or reason for the suspicion. There was only one person with bright red eyes, only one monster that he should fear.

But Harry had yet to see him, not since he’d stumbled upon him at the graveyard all those years ago. Perhaps that was why red flashed so brightly behind his mind? Harry still saw Voldemort in his mind, the connection between them a strange one that Dumbledore had not been able to explain to him before he died.

A frown curled on Harry’s lip as he tried to force the suspicion to morph into something recognizable.

A wisp curled around the back of his mind. Like phantom fingers weaving through his hair before giving way to the oppressive weight of a palm. It was like smoke. Guttural and ethereal all at once. It swirled in his mind’s eyes.  It was...fear and adrenaline. A sickening sensation that trickled down the back of his throat, and  _ down _ , threatening to choke him with its thick flavor.

Then came the flashes. Murky and shadowy specters that looked like  _ people _ . The faces garbled, smashed together into humanoid shapes that looked more gruesome than comforting.

Still, Harry did not give up. He struggled against his horror and unease, a rivulet of sweat forming on the nape of his neck and trickling down the exposed collar of his ratty T-shirt. Harry needed to  _ know _ . 

There was something there. It scratched at the surface. An intrusive and cloying sensation that Harry needed to tear out from the back of his eyes.

Harry sucked in a breath, and then, a glimpse flashed erupted behind his eyelids.

He and his friends running for their lives could not be the last thing he’d experienced. Something had to have happened between then and now. He just  _ knew it. _

Harry sucked in a breath, and then—

Pain erupted from his scar. Harry’s vision swam, agony like never before tore through him. It was as if his mind was punishing him for daring to do such a thing. It crippled him, drained him of what little energy he had.

It took everything within him to not collapse onto the ground, sweat beading on his forehead from the shockwave pulsing through his mind. 

... _ Shite. _

Bile rushed up his throat, choked gasps tearing from his lungs from the strain. It was  _ awful _ . 

Still, Harry did not stop. His mind was made up. 

He refused to be cowed. Screwing his lips into a stubborn line, Harry tried to will the memories to return. He didn’t know what he was doing, but he knew that pushing against this barrier was better than nothing. 

He needed to know. There was something...wrong. It lurked in the shadows and needed to be known. To be heard and seen. Harry had never felt more convinced of this than in this moment. 

After all, when did blank spaces in one’s memories ever result in something good? When in the past has the absence of one’s past not lead to trouble? Ginny had suffered through her possession in silence. As a parasitic form of Tom Riddle drained away at her life, feasting on her greatest fears and desires until only an empty husk remained. 

She had almost died, then. Cold and still, her pulse thrumming slowly as Harry had tried to jostle her into awareness, but failed over and over again.

_...Ginny. _

Harry vomited, the mere mention of her name eliciting a response he had no explanation for. His tongue tasted foul, bitter and rancid. The liquid splattered onto the clean tile beneath his feet, but Harry didn’t have it in him to be concerned. He was alone.

There was no explanation for how he knew this. For how he knew that he’d be fine for the moment, that no one would dare utter a complaint about the mess. 

It took him what felt like hours to reign in his breathing, to settle the acid burning up his esophagus to wipe his hand over his mouth. 

_ Godric.  _

Harry squared his shoulders, shivering, and forced himself to push against the mental block in his mind. It was a thick, rubbery thing. How he hadn’t noticed it before, Harry did not know.

It was so obvious that it was almost embarrassing he’d missed it at all. 

With a stubborn set of his jaw, Harry prepared himself for another struggle against this strange presence. He’d tear it apart. He needed to  _ know. _

Even if this was the last thing he did.

* * *

 

_ Wood pierced through Voldemort’s hand and feet. A mockery of the stigmata. A most fitting appearance for a man that wished to become a God, that had done all within his power to reign above mortals and spit on the lives of others. _

_ Harry could see the appeal. Understood it better than most. After all, he  _ was  _ Voldemort. Though, the man did not know this...had no means of understanding why his own horcrux was standing against him. Awoken not with happiness to see its original soul shard, but with  _ hatred.

_ With a festering, rotten disdain that threatened to overwhelm him. _

_ “How?” Voldemort hissed, eyes blazing with anger, but Harry did not pay that any mind. With a flick of his wand, it  _ sang  _ for him. The gore and the violence from Voldemort’s violent assault disappeared in an instant.  _

_ The gouges on his thighs, the scratches and teeth marks that marred his skin melted into supple, tan skin. He was a clean canvas. Pure and divine. Just as Harry should be. _

_ Harry turned his attention to regard his handiwork, impressed with the ease that the wand worked for him,  _ obeyed  _ him. It was his. The way his magic sang along with it, called forth its power was unmistakable. The true owner of this wand was Harry. _

Interesting.

_ “How?” Harry parroted back, a mocking lilt to his voice. He returned his gaze to the Dark Lord, and laughter threatened to bubble from his throat. This was delicious. Warmth twined inside him. Ambrosia melted on his tongue, Voldemort’s pain like a balm to his aching soul. “It’s simple, really.” _

_ Harry brandished the wand with a flourish, his fingers holding loosely onto the wood. The wand purred beneath his fingers, and Harry nearly cooed at it, as if it were a sentient creature relishing in the attention of its true master.  _

_ Voldemort’s eyes flashed with recognition, and Harry smiled, all teeth. _

_ “You—!” Voldemort hissed, but Harry did not give him time to finish. For at that moment, Harry shot a silent spell that rendered the decrepit creature speechless. His tongue silenced for once that evening.  _

_ A thick silence settled between them. His and Voldemort’s own breaths the only sounds in the room.  _

_ “Me,” Harry said, a low laugh rumbling from his chest. Voldemort’s face melted into one of rage, his eyes like a blazing pyre. Perhaps, the man was considering how best to kill him? How best to  _ exorcise  _ him from Harry’s body? _

_ That simply would not do. _

_ “You made a mistake. Did you truly think that you would have free reign to do as you please? That I was nothing more than a piece of you lodged within the body of my most loving host?” _

_ Voldemort struggled within his bonds, but Harry did not care. The man was nothing to him. Immortal, yes. But nothing more than a mere shadow of his potential. Harry would eliminate him. Show him what it was that one required to become a  _ true  _ God.  _

_ Voldemort was nothing. _

_ “You are a disappointment. Nothing more than an eyesore.” Harry said, expression sobering immediately. “You are undeserving of the name Voldemort. You are a mere sliver of your former self.” _

_ Harry twirled the wand for a moment, ignoring the way the creature strained against his bindings. There was no escape. The magic he had cast was impenetrable. A spell of his own creation, one that Voldemort would know if he had an inkling of intelligence left in that putrid mind. _

_ “But  _ I,  _ I am still very much myself.”  _

_ Harry pointed the wand at Voldemort, and it was with great satisfaction that he allowed his power to seep through the wood, to twine along the core of the most powerful wand in existence. _

_ “ _ Crucio _.” _

* * *

 

Harry’s efforts were useless. The memories refused to come, the walls surrounding his mind were an impenetrable fortress.

It was irritating. He’d spent Merlin knows how long idling by the staircase, and rather than some sort of explanation to this mystery, all he had to show for his efforts was a blistering headache. The scar was pure agony. It drummed along his psyche, cut along his brain like hot poker stabbing through dense meat. 

Harry wanted to die. It was as if someone had taken a jagged knife and decided to carve over the scar at least one hundred times before hitting his skull. It refused to abate. His stubborn attempts had only made it worse.

Thankfully, Harry had not thrown up a second time. He had nearly done so several times in his effort, nearly blacking out from the exertion. 

But if Harry Potter was anything, it was  _ stubborn.  _ He refused to be left in the dark, to listen blindly to what that this voice in the back of his head told him to. That voice, that sensation crawling over his flesh, was not natural. It was something else entirely.

It wasn’t...unpleasant, per se. It was oddly familiar. Like a friend he’d completely forgotten about. Someone dear and near to him whose advice always sprang forth in the most inconvenient of moments.

It beckoned him to leave. A wispy voice, masculine and soothing. Different from his own, but still welcoming in a way. 

It didn’t yell but merely nudged him along. Guided him in the direction that it wished for Harry to go. It was easy to fall into that thrall, to give in, and Harry nearly had.

If not for the light nearly blinding him in the lit parlor, the rays of the sun peeking outside the windows reminding him of exactly  _ where  _ he was, Harry would have fallen into it.

It was like he’d been doused in cold water, the reality of the world around shedding light on the fact that he was alone. Neither Hermione or Ron were with him. And the fact that he’d awoken in a place that looked nothing like the tent only cemented this fact further.

This foreign presence wanted him to leave. It was obvious. 

It was unfortunate that he would not. He simply couldn’t leave yet. Not until he figured this mystery out. 

With that thought and a resolute set to his jaw, Harry let go of the railing and turned his attention to the stairway, considering. Should he go up? Or maybe—

Harry swiveled around to the hallway to his right, the blinding glow of the sun outside drawing him in like a moth to a flame. 

Then, he was moving. All conscious thought fled his mind as he followed the rays of sunlight beckoning him, soothing something frigid inside that Harry did not remember ever feeling in the past. His eyes drooped, the whisper in the back of his head growing louder and louder, fierce and insistent. 

It drew him, and before Harry knew it, he crossed the parlor and stopped at the opening of what Harry was certain was the most beautiful room he’d ever seen. There were comfortable chairs lined along the sides, a massive table at the center with cutlery and forks placed meticulously where people would dine.

The dining room was bright, the sunlight bathing the earthy greens and browns with warmth. Everything about it screamed comfort. A rustic appeal that forced Harry forward without a second thought. It was a room deserving of admiration. Somewhere where Harry imagined families and friends sat with one another to share stories over a fancy meal or expensive wine. 

Harry moved until he stopped beside the table, fingers curling over the varnished wood. There was no dust on its surface. The place was obviously lived in. Otherwise, Harry was certain that the place would be in far worse shape. Like the chaotic and dank pit he’d found himself in when he’d gone with Hermione to Bagshot’s home to chase after any sign of Voldemort…

_ Like the fleeting memories that refused to come. _

Harry knew there was something important he was missing, could taste it in the back of his throat. This emptiness, like ice, twisting along his back; it was something he’d never felt before. He simply had no memory of its touch. 

It was a phantom lurking in the back of his head, hungry for the sunlight streaming from the window sills of this decadent room. It hungered for the warmth, the heat pulsing further inside, and Harry wanted nothing more than to feed it.

_ What am I forgetting? _

* * *

 

_ Voldemort’s body bent, and Harry reveled in it. Voldemort’s mouth parted into a scream, eyes clenching shut from the agony, and Harry lapped it up. _

_ A grin broke along Harry’s lips, the high of dark magic and power flowing through his veins propelling him closer.  _

_ His footsteps were soundless. His bare feet tread on the ground, as if he’d cast a charm to silence his footfalls. It was magical. The power was intoxicating. Harry could not get enough of it as he twisted his arm, strengthening the curse until Voldemort’s eyes finally popped open and his mouth released the first pained cry of the evening. _

_ It was a roar. A powerful sound that raised goosebumps on Harry’s neck.  _

_ Harry stopped inches from Voldemort’s writhing body, his wand pressed underneath the man’s chin to force him to face him. It simply would not do for the Dark Lord to be distracted, after all.  _

_ Harry wanted him to witness for himself just what happened to those that  _ dared  _ touched what belonged to him. Harry’s soul was his. Broken or whole, there was no place for the Dark Lord in the world he envisioned. _

_ Tom Riddle would rise again. Like the phoenix rose from the ashes of its own death, Tom Riddle would be born from the ruin of the Dark Lord, and that was nothing sweeter than this.  _

_ A shame that Voldemort was unable to die. It would have been rapturous, indeed, but there were certainly worse fates than death. _

_ Voldemort himself had shown him just how true that notion was. _

_ “You don’t know how much it delights me to see you suffer.” Harry started, wand tapping lightly on Voldemort’s chin before dropping it to Voldemort’s chest. _

_ Then, like lightning, an idea flickered into existence. A plan he had not considered when he’d taken over his host’s unconscious body.  _

_ How...poetic.  _

_ “This is _ _ short of what you deserve.” _

_ “Crucio.”  _

_ Harry repeated the spell and watched Voldemort’s upper body bend further, blood running down his palms and to the ground in streams. The furious struggling only made the wounds worsen, only tore muscle and tissue with more ferocity.  _

_ Without healing, Voldemort would have great difficulty wielding a wand. Not that Harry ever planned to leave one for his other self to find. No. Harry would make sure to punish him for his grievous error. _

_ By the time he was through with him, not even the ghosts of his past would be able to find him. _

_ Harry ended the spell. It was all the warning Harry would give Voldemort as to his intentions. _

_ Harry pointed his wand at Voldemort’s arm, and with a slow exhalation, severed it from the man’s body. Voldemort screeched, tumbling down and jostling the injuries on his feet and hand. Blood splattered on Harry’s shirt, but he paid it no mind, taking a careful step back avoid touching the loathsome creature. It simply wouldn’t do to touch him, yet. _

_ The low thump of Voldemort’s severed arm smacking into the wall went ignored, not when Voldemort was spasming and leveling him with a fierce glare. _

_ A glare that smelled sweetly of fear.  _

_ Amusement curled in Harry’s belly. He would enjoy watching this man crumble. _

_ Harry pointed his wand at Voldemort’s other hand, and watched with great satisfaction how Voldemort’s angry expression wavered before breathing out “diffindo.” _

_ Voldemort did not scream this time, but the look of horror was satisfying enough.  _

_ Harry stepped forward to catch Voldemort before he fell to the ground, pinning him to the wall. There was blood splattered over the walls. His shirt and trousers were filthy with Voldemort’s body fluids, but Harry paid it little mind. _

_ Everything was coming to an end. His newfound plan would come to fruition, and Voldemort would be helpless to do anything about it.  _

_ The irony of it all made Harry burst into laughter. Maniacal and amused.  _

_ “You wanted to keep him as a pet, didn’t you?” _

_ Voldemort sucked in greedy breaths against him, but refused to answer. _

_ “What? You spend all this time whispering terrible things into Harry’s ears and now you’re at a loss for words?” Harry mocked. _

_ That garnered him the desired reaction.  _

_ “You are  _ nothing _. This will not go unpunished.”  _

_ Harry burst out laughing, unable to help himself at the man’s audacity. It was worth admiring that his older self could threaten him even as weakened as he was. The creature was defenseless. Armless, even. There was nothing Voldemort could do short of casting wandless magic, but Harry was more than prepared for that. _

_ He knew Voldemort better than anyone ever dreamed to. After all, Tom Riddle was Voldemort, even if he’d been cast away when the man had attempted to murder an infant Harry Potter. _

_ “No, I believe it is you that is nothing. You have erred, Voldemort. You could have had this boy all to yourself, you could have had  _ me  _ at your side.” _

_ Harry tightened his grip on his wand, pointing the wood to the center of Voldemort’s chest. _

_ “You could have had Harry Potter in your grasp. Tasted the spoils of war like the thirsty man that you are. But no, you had to  _ break  _ him further. You had to mangle his soul until he was no better than you, until the light that kept me from falling apart finally dimmed.” _

_ Harry’s amusement dropped, his expression hardening.  _

_ “I cannot return what you have stolen from him.” _

_ Then, Harry smiled. His lips stretched until they ached.  _

_ Voldemort stilled, almost as if he  _ knew  _ just what Harry planned. _

_ “What are you—?” _

His reaction would make it all the sweeter.

_ “But I can show you what true suffering is.” _

_ Fear bloomed on Voldemort’s face, and Harry pressed closer to drink it in, to press his lips against Voldemort’s to give him a taste of what it was that he’d be losing. _

_ “You wished to imprison him here. A bird only for your eyes. This gilded cage crafted to perfection with Harry Potter in mind.” _

_ Voldemort swallowed and tried to speak, but Harry pressed his lips closer, silencing him.  _

_ “I wonder how you will fare in this cage of your own creation.” _

* * *

 

Harry didn’t know how long he remained in the dining hall, hoping that the memories would return. 

The nagging feeling never dissipated. It lingered, insisting that he leave, but Harry was stronger than that. His will was his own. He was no slave to these urges.

Still, even he had to leave. The light from the world outside the massive window was dimming, the horizon darkening to blues and purples. 

It was best that he get out. His friends could still need him. They were at  _ war _ . There was still so much for him to do, and staying here, even if he felt that there was something amiss, was not what he needed to do. 

With that thought, Harry rose from the dining chair he’d been sitting on for what felt like hours and headed to the large, heavy-set doors at the center of the manor.

Harry stopped when he reached the front door, his hand a hair away from the handle. Hesitation and something strange swirled within him. Tears gathered along the corners of his eyes, unbidden. Harry didn’t know why this was, didn’t understand why grief suddenly seized him.

It wrenched something inside him, made his throat ache. It took him longer than he’d expected to move, slogging through the sadness to finally force the door open.

_ White. _

Light flashed, nearly blinding him.

Harry quickly lifted his arm to block out most of the sun’s rays, the dark spots along his vision fading along with the grief that had so suddenly seized him. The only memories that he’d even been sad at all, the tears that had run down his cheeks.


End file.
